


Like Faithful Oxen Through The Chalk

by TheAlchemistsDaughter



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: ABO, Alpha!Steve, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bottom!Bucky, Hydra is Soviet woops, Language Barrier, M/M, Omega!Bucky, top!steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-11 19:56:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9008974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAlchemistsDaughter/pseuds/TheAlchemistsDaughter
Summary: He pushes past her and looks through the window. Inside, a man prowls like a panther, his face hidden by long dark hair. Steve’s first thought is operative. It’s in the roll of his shoulders as he walks, the black combat pants tightening over muscular thighs, the empty holsters strapped over his body. The man is all black in the white room and it’s shocking. His hands are tight fists, opening for a second before curling up again like paper in a fire. One arm is shining metal. He turns with his back to them and paces the other way. Steve’s second thought is that this man is not just angry at having been caught. There is a jagged discomfort to him, like the different parts of his body don’t belong to him and he has to fight to keep them working together. It’s like he’s at war with his own brain. It doesn’t make sense, but after thinking dangerous and angry, Steve thinks hurt, and that word sticks to him in a way he doesn’t like. The Alpha part of him yearns. Omega.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kafkian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kafkian/gifts).



> Happy Holidays, one and all! I wanted to release this for all the Millenials at home with their families who might rather be on the internet. It started as an experiment: Could I write ABO? Could I write present-tense? It's taken me a long time to finish, and I am well-aware of its weaknesses, but hopefully you will still enjoy it. I will post two chapters a day for five days so check back :) 
> 
> I am afraid I got confused and thought Hydra was a Communist Soviet organisation rather than a Nazi one, because the Cold War ideologies suited the story better. Woops! I'm sure you can forgive me. The title is from the song History Book by Dry The River that I honestly just looped the entire time I was writing this fic.

It’s Tony who finds him first.

Steve is elsewhere, on a mission. He’s there as an Avenger, but he’s there by himself. The others are chasing something on the other side of the planet. Later, Steve will thank God that Natasha was with Tony when they found him, because Tony wouldn’t necessarily have recognised the significance of the metal arm, and Iron Man would have blown him to bits. Not that he saved his ammo at all, but he didn’t kill him.

Days after that, Steve will wonder what would have happened if he had been the one to find him, just him. Whether he would have brought him in at all.

But Nat sees the arm, knows exactly which Hydra agent they have in front of them, and orders Tony to bring him in. He could be too useful for SHIELD not to interrogate him.

It’s a hard fight, but they take him down, and wrap him for transport. Steve is unaware of all of this, of course, until he gets the call.

He’s in the middle of something himself, so he answers the little pipping ringtone in his ear with “I’m kind of busy here.”

But Nat says “You need to come in” in a tone of voice he has heard her use less than a handful of times, and every time will be forever carved in his memory. So he replies “On my way,” then he cuts the chitchat and throws his shield at the sniper perch, runs into open fire, and ties up the loose ends.

Less than ten hours later, he is landing at Headquarters, and Banner is actually there to meet him. Steve ignores the jangled mess of Bruce’s spirit, so unstable from the experiment that gave him the Hulk. He’s never been able to get a read on exactly who is what - whether the Hulk is an Alpha or just a monster, whether Bruce even _had_ a spirit-read before the accident. It would be rude to ask, especially since the American government turned Steve from an Omega to an Alpha, so everyone thinks he has won the spirit lottery.

He didn’t know Bruce was involved. Had everyone been called in? His expectations move from some personal shit sandwich Natasha is dealing with to a weapon of mass destruction.

“What’s the brief?” he asks Bruce.

“We’ve been waiting on you,” he tells him, and they’re already walking.

Bruce wastes no time leading him down past the floors with the command centres and meeting rooms and rec rooms, past the canteens and the dorms and the armoury and labs. Steve ticks off the possibilities as the floors flip past in the elevator, and comes to the conclusion that unless their goal is to fall out the bottom of this lift shaft, they’re going to see someone in the holding cells.

They call them holding cells because they can’t legally imprison people in this building, they can only hold them. They’re not prisoners because they haven’t been tried and found guilty and sentenced. SHIELD is just holding onto them. But they’re cells because they have guest accommodation twelve floors up for the people they like.

In his mind, Steve is trying to match the reaction of his team with hostiles he knows. Loki? He reaches further, but he’s coming up blank. He doesn’t have any outstanding threats like some of the others do. All the enemies he made are dead now.

The lift doors ping open and he matches Banner’s stride. He wants to run, even though he’s starting to feel sick with worry, but he doesn’t know where he’s going. These cells aren’t for detainees they are holding with prejudice, but they’re not for normal people either. Rows of brightly-lit windows pop past, each one revealing an identical white and clear plastic room beyond, each one empty.

Ahead of them, his teammates come into view. They’re standing in front of one of the windows, and Steve swallows, squares his shoulders. He’s worried, but he can’t let it show. He drapes himself in his Alpha spirit, but not too much. He doesn’t want to look defensive or aggressive.

Natasha’s there, still in her black body suit. She doesn’t have a spirit-read, but Steve knows better than to count her as anything other than an Alpha.

Tony’s Alpha spirit isn’t giving him anything to work with, his usual level of bravado masking whether he is calm or coiled to spring. He is still wearing what Steve can’t help but think of as his long johns. He knows better than to tell his friend that’s what he calls them - if only because he knows it’s a thought from a time before Tony was born - but he always forgets what Tony calls them. They’re soft and form-fitting clothes that he puts on when he knows he’s going to be wearing his armour. The fact that he hasn’t changed out of them speaks volumes, and metal glints at his wrists and temples and neck, so he hasn’t disarmed yet. Fury is there, another who is solidly in the camp of spiritless Alphas.

So not the whole team, unless the others haven’t arrived yet. Something about this set up says _need to know basis_ to Steve.

They look up when they hear him coming, and Tony’s spirit reacts to his, so Steve knows this is serious. Natasha takes a step forward, her face soft and hard at the same time, her hands coming out as if she wants to stop him before he gets to them. Fury scowls, but his eye is watchful.

“What do we have?” he says, trying to sound in control, since they’re all acting like he’s going to do something they don’t want him to.

Natasha answers. “Steve, this is going to be a shock and I need you to brace yourself and not-”

He pushes past her and looks through the window. Inside, a man prowls like a panther, his face hidden by long dark hair. Steve’s first thought is _operative_. It’s in the roll of his shoulders as he walks, the black combat pants tightening over muscular thighs, the empty holsters strapped over his body. The man is all black in the white room and it’s shocking. His hands are tight fists, opening for a second before curling up again like paper in a fire. One arm is shining metal. He turns with his back to them and paces the other way.

Steve’s second thought is that this man is not just angry at having been caught. There is a jagged discomfort to him, like the different parts of his body don’t belong to him and he has to fight to keep them working together. It’s like he’s at war with his own brain. It doesn’t make sense, but after thinking _dangerous_ and _angry_ , Steve thinks _hurt_ , and that word sticks to him in a way he doesn’t like.

The Alpha part of him yearns. _Omega_.

He looks at the man again, a faint frown bending his brow. This man has the body of an Alpha, and certainly the attitude of one. Every inch of him is screaming for a fight, begging for an opponent. Spirit reading doesn’t work as well through barriers, like windows, but then Steve shouldn’t be able to read him at all, not get it wrong. He can’t think why, but his Alpha spirit is telling him that this man is an Omega.

He realises the others haven’t said anything, haven’t filled him in, and Natasha is holding her breath. He tears his eyes away from the man in the cell to look at them. They’re staring at him as if they expect him to react to this man. Is it just because they’re an Alpha and an Omega? Steve knows what’s supposed to happen, but he’s always resisted every Omega he’s come across before. He was an Omega himself, he knows what it’s like. And it’s not like his friends to corral a mate for him – or at least, not using SHIELD resources.

“Where did you find him?” he asks, hoping for a clue.

“Bern,” Natasha tells him.

Fine. He knows where that is, but it doesn’t tell him anything, so he nods for the moment and looks back at the prisoner.

He jumps, because the man is now standing a foot away from the glass on the other side. More than half the man’s face is covered by a black mask and that long hair, but his eyes are Cadillac blue, and though the expression is foreign, Steve knows the setting of those eyes, the curve of those brows.

It’s not that Steve gasps, or stops breathing, it’s more that now Steve is breathing in a street in Brooklyn, looking at his best friend Bucky Barnes as they sit on the stoop of Steve’s building. He really shouldn’t be outside with that cough that could turn mean, but he hated being cooped up and Bucky will look after him, and spend all day sitting on a stone slab to keep him from feeling blue, only leaving his side for twenty minutes so he can buy them fries for lunch while Steve waits just inside the door. 

Steve hears the pop of a holster clip, the lightest tap of fingers on metal from behind him.

The man in front of him draws back his metal arm, and launches it at the window, the whole thing wobbling and rippling but not breaking.

Now Steve hears a gun being pulled and a clicking of metalwork with a faint arc reactor hum, but all he can think is that Bucky was a Beta. And Bucky is dead.

The man in the cell punches the window again, and there might be a scratch this time. That arm is clearly more than ordinary metal. Steve doesn’t want to let him keep trying to get out, or get at them, because he thinks he’ll do it.

Before anyone can stop him, Steve is unlocking the door and pulling it open. Even the man in the cell looks surprised, dropping back from the window and into a defensive position, but Steve doesn’t have his fists up. He’s totally open, arms hanging numbly at his side as he pants, because now he can see the operative’s spirit in full. The image he gets is Omega-charcoal, grey and black, with the raw white edges of a huge lightning bolt crack down the middle, and it vibrates with the effort of holding it all together so that it doesn’t just peel into two halves. Looking at it makes Steve want to put his arms around the bundle of spirit and man and hold them both together so that it can finally _rest_.

He must just be in so much _pain_. It’s a mess. And on the edges, the faintest hints of Beta-blue that’s been coloured over, and over, and over, until the page is thin and torn under a thick slab of slate grey. But Steve knows that blue. Exactly two shades darker than the colour of his eyes, it’s Brooklyn blue, the colour of the Statue of Liberty on a postcard, the colour of the Hudson river in old paintings, the colour of the Mets.

“Bucky?” he croaks.

The man – Bucky - doesn’t move. Doesn’t reply. Doesn’t fight. Steve suddenly becomes aware of his own Alpha spirit pulsing in him. He wears it like an ill-fitting coat, it makes his shoulders broader, makes him seem taller than he is. It’s too big for him, lying outside his skin rather than within it. It makes Steve want to cringe to have Bucky look at him like this. Maybe it’s the part of him that’s still Omega, buried deep. Maybe it’s just the thought that Bucky won’t recognise him.

The experiment was a success, the serum turned him from an Omega to an Alpha. It changed his body and made him the strongest Alpha in the United States, probably the world. They used his picture on posters telling people to enlist with the caption ‘Be All You Can Be’. It was a powerful image. Uncle Sam loved it, and Steve could finally relax as it shut the door on the risk of an Alpha trying to claim him, something he had spent almost ten years running from.

Bucky had always protected him. Growing up in Brooklyn, Bucky had fought off anyone who came after Steve, or hid them both from the Alphas he couldn’t fight. In those days, they were a Beta and an Omega. There wasn’t the pull that existed between an Alpha and an Omega. They were best friends and brothers in every way but blood.

Now they are an Alpha and an Omega, and it’s like the universe has realised its mistake and bent them into the roles they were meant to have, but it’s all wrong, all wrong. Bucky is hurt. Neither of them are moving.

Steve swallows, ready to try again. “Bucky? It’s me,” he implores. “Steve.” Adding his name on the end feels like betting on a loss, but he does it anyway, because no lights come on in Bucky’s blue eyes. “Come on, Buck. It’s me,” he says again, uselessly.

But he doesn’t quite get to finish because Bucky rushes him, swinging. Steve staggers back rather than meet the charge, dodging, each punch whistling past his head with enough force to tell him that Bucky is absolutely trying to kill him.

The cell is small, and Steve’s back is against the wall now, and a low punch to the gut hits him like a shotgun shell, doubling him up so that the next strike goes over his head, hitting the wall and making it reverberate like a gong. Almost faster than Steve can track, Bucky shoves Steve’s shoulders down while rocketing his knee up to kick him in the chest, pressing his advantage. Steve is amazed by the speed and efficient cruelty of it. Bucky is definitely not normal anymore. This must be how his enemies feel when fighting Captain America, he thinks. But he can’t let Bucky win, so he blocks the kick and spins out of Bucky’s hands, making it to the other side of the room.

Bucky is now between him and the door. Steve holds up his hands. “Stop,” he says. “Stop.”

Bucky turns back to face him, and there is nothing peaceful about the move.

“Steve, get out of there.” It’s Natasha’s voice on the intercom. “We’ll gas the room, put him out.”

Steve holds one hand out to the mercuried surface of the two-way mirror, keeping the other one between him and Bucky. “No,” he says.

Bucky shifts and comes for him again, throwing punches from martial arts and an alley brawl. Steve blocks as best he can, but he takes one to the face and has to kick Bucky to the other side of the room while his ears ring. He looks at Bucky, who looks ready to come for him again. His face stings and he’s fighting vertigo. He’s got size on Bucky, and strength, he thinks. They are both hindered by the small space. But Steve isn’t fighting back, and unless he does, he’s going to lose this fight.

“I don’t want to fight you, Buck,” he says.

“Steve, get out of there,” Nat again, sounding tense.

“I’m staying right here,” he tells her. He looks back at Bucky. “No one’s going to hurt you,” he says. “I don’t want to fight.”

“Goddamn it, Steve, he doesn’t remember you! They cooked his brain, there’s nothing left!” Natasha says.

Steve stops arguing with her. There’s plenty he could say to her. First to his mind is _Then why did you bring me here?_ The second thing as he continues to hold Bucky’s eyes is _That’s not true_. He doesn’t want it to be true and it isn’t true. There’s still some Bucky fraying the edges of this man’s spirit, like a loose thread hanging from a hem. Bucky’s fighting him, but he’s spent more time _not_ fighting him.

He wants to focus on Bucky because he is the first person in seventy years that he hasn’t had to learn to care about. Because with Bucky here, it’s like everyone else isn’t. Because he wants to know how his friend was turned into an Omega, and who did it, and who hurt him.

He relocates his mind into the cell and that’s all. Nothing outside it gets in. He lowers his hands, so he doesn’t look like he’s bracing to stop an oncoming train, and more like he’s catching the bumper of a speeding car.

“Whoever had you before, they don’t have you anymore,” he whispers, watching his spirit pulse. “I’m your best friend. We go way back. We grew up together.”

Bucky’s spirit is doing… _something_ now, but his expression is glassy, unmoving. He’s watching him so Steve continues.

“I was an Omega then. You were a Beta. I was shorter than you, and a real scrawny kid. You were always looking out for me, fighting my battles, though I always tried to stop you.” Steve would be almost smiling, laughing at his old self, but Bucky’s spirit is sparking with pain, a big glowing white ache heating up in the middle of it, until it flashes suddenly into anger. 

Bucky growls something Steve doesn’t understand but thinks is Russian and launches himself at him again. He leaps and grips Steve around the ribs with his knees, bearing him to the ground. There isn’t enough room for Steve to go down cleanly, so they hit the wall and slide, and Bucky is already volleying punches that Steve does his best to block. That metal arm, every time it hits, Steve thinks his arm breaks a little bit.

He thinks Bucky is going to tear his head off. Everything goes black.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Steve wakes up in a bed in medical. He has a headache and his mouth is coppery and he can feel his face, which makes him think something must be wrong with it.

Natasha is there, staring down at him disapprovingly. He forces himself to sit up.

“How long was I out?” he asks, touching his face, wincing when it hurts. At least he’s not on a drip, and they didn’t strip him.

“An hour and twenty minutes,” she replies. “Though that might have been the gas. The doctor wants to check you for a concussion.”

“Where’s Bucky?”

“Contained.”

Steve looks at her, suddenly worried, and she softens.

“He’s sedated and restrained in another room. You didn’t hurt him at all.”

Steve gets up and thinks the doctor might be onto something with that concussion. He wobbles but steadies himself. The Alpha serum will take care of any hurt by the end of the day, though his forearms still ache.

“Take me there,” he says.

Natasha sighs almost as she’s speaking. “Steve, do you really think that’s a good idea? He tried to kill you, and you’re clearly not thinking rationally about this. Maybe bringing him here was a mistake. You’re too close.”

Steve lets her finish. He knows everything she says is true. He also knows she’s wrong.

“Done?” he asks her. “Take me to him.”

Medical is all on one floor, but the secure rooms are through a security door that needs a passcard and a code. Steve lets Natasha do all that, and when they’re through, he goes looking for Bucky. There aren’t that many rooms in here, and he can feel his spirit through the walls now.

The room is secured too, so he raps his knuckles against the observation window sharply, drawing the attention of the doctor inside, who hurries to let him in. Nat catches up. Bucky is lying out cold on a bed. He does have a drip and a hospital gown, and his hair is the darkest thing in the room. They’ve taken off his clothes and his mask, and his face is impossibly young for someone his age. What did they do to him?

The doctor opens the door and Steve slips in before the man is out of the way. Inside the room, he can smell Bucky, just a little bit. It doesn’t give him flashbacks, but it does something to his skin and his stomach. Maybe it’s the concussion.

“Who undressed him?” he asks.

“Don’t answer that,” orders Natasha, warning the young doctor who had already drawn a breath to respond. Steve doesn’t like what she’s implying about him, but he doesn’t press.

Tony enters the room, looking rushed, and he gives Nat a chastising look.

“What did you do to his arm?” Steve asks.

“Well, we realised we didn’t have restraints that could hold it, and we haven’t figured out how to-” Tony makes a sharp pop with his mouth while miming a twist with his hands. “So we improvised.”

“Is that bubble wrap?” Steve asks.

“I wanted to set it in concrete but it was agreed this was less punchy,” Tony offers.

Steve stares at the two-foot thick cylinder of bubble wrap that has been wound around Bucky’s outstretched metal arm and hand. It feels wrong for them all to be looking at him while he’s unconscious, but he’s not going to be the first to look away. He needs to be here, to protect him.

Tony holds up a thick roll of duct tape and waggles it, slipping between Steve and Natasha to stand by Bucky’s side. He separates a strip from the roll with loud tear, then quickly winds it tightly around where the elbow of the metal arm must be under all the bubble wrap. He keeps doing it, until Steve thinks he must be planning on using the whole roll.

“Let’s see him get through this,” Tony grunts. “It’s great when you don’t have to worry about circulation. I can make this as tight as I like.” He tears off the roll, then uses what’s left to wrap Bucky’s hand.

“What do you want to do with him?” Steve asks.

“He needs to be interrogated,” Natasha tells him.

“He’s unconscious.”

“Eventually. He might know things that could put Hydra down for good.”

Steve turns back to the man, the body in the bed. “I’m staying with him,” he says, and it’s a declaration. It ripples around the room, because now it’s not Steve talking, it’s the strongest Alpha on the American continent, and he’s just dug his heels in.

“Steve…” Natasha starts, Tony wisely staying out of it. “He’s going to have to answer for his crimes eventually.”

“I know. But I’m staying with him.”

“He’s the Winter Soldier,” Natasha continues, as if that explains it. It doesn’t; the name means nothing to Steve, but he understands the tone of her voice and knows a man doesn’t get a name for doing nothing.

“I know,” he argues back.

“He’s done things. Bad things. For a long time.”

This time Steve turns his head to look at her, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes steady. “I’m staying with him,” he says, and Nat looks away.

It’s not a threat of a fight, it’s the truth. If anyone tries to change that truth, and separate him from Bucky, yes there will be a fight, but it won’t change anything. Steve will still be standing right next to Bucky at the end of it. And that’s the threat.

That’s the thing about Alphas, why people who hate them hate them. Alphas get to make their own truths. If they don’t like something, they have the strength and will to change it, and they don’t even feel bad about doing what needs to be done. Steve has always tried to be different, maybe because he was raised as an Omega. He has always tried to listen to other people and make decisions based on what’s best for everyone. But not this time. This time there is one thing Steve _knows_ , and anyone who tries to argue is going to find out they’re wrong.

“Well, no time like the present!” claps Tony. “Let’s wake him up!”

Everyone in the room knows it’s a bad idea, but Steve agrees with Tony, and Natasha won’t argue with Steve.

Bucky is moved to an interrogation room, where he is strapped to a chair. He is still in the thin hospital gown, and Steve lets the technicians move him from the bed to the chair. It’s still too soon for Steve to touch him, not when he’s unconscious. It doesn’t feel safe for him to do that. But he makes sure all the Alphas, with or without spirit reads, stay a healthy distance away, while he stands close and watches where the doctors put their hands.

Bucky looks ridiculous with one arm stuck in a roll of bubble wrap and duct tape, in the pale hospital gown that doesn’t cover his knees when he is swiftly and securely strapped in. Steve looks at his knees. Bucky’s legs are pale and muscular, the skin rough with abrasions and scars. On the side of his right knee is a white scar from a bike accident when he was twelve. That’s all the confirmation Steve will ever need from this point on.

Bucky starts to come round as the last straps are being pulled tight, and the technicians scatter as he tests the restraints with a few harsh tugs before settling. Nat gestures them out of the room. Steve is still staring at Bucky. According to his spirit, he was trying to pull himself free before the effects of the sedatives were clear. It was a reflex, and he gave up almost before he was fully conscious. Steve worries about what that implies.

They watch as Bucky wakes and shakes off the sedatives, amazingly quickly for an Omega, definitely more like an enhanced Alpha like Steve. His breath huffs out of him, like he is in pain, or expecting to be hit, or has just surfaced from being drowned. He doesn’t look at any of them. His head hangs between his shoulders, his face hidden behind his hair.

He shuts off his breathing suddenly, the silence ringing out in the room, and nobody moves. As it stretches out, Natasha takes a step forward. It sounds like Bucky is aware and listening now, like they have been given their cue.

“What is your name?” she asks. She’s starting out slow, easy, seeing if he is willing to talk. Bucky does not reply. “Do you know where you are?” Her voice is clear and professional, she could be dictating to a tape.

Steve just watches and listens, standing with his arms across his chest, parallel to the chair Bucky is sitting in. He looks like a guard and he knows it; he wants his role here to be unmistakeable. He isn’t allowing his spirit to touch Bucky’s, but in his head and in his heart, Bucky is thoroughly wrapped inside the red armour, protected and untouchable.

“Do you know who we are?” Natasha continues. Steve suspects there is a tried and tested list of questions like that for her to ask before they get to the real stuff. It’s like a flow-chart, and normally Bucky’s non-compliance could lead to a beating, some arm-twisting, a gradual escalation of enhanced interrogation techniques that are also on the flow-chart. For a Hydra agent, Steve might be the one asked to dole out the punches himself, but that’s not going to happen to Bucky. No one is even going to threaten him. Steve is going to step in before it gets to that point, and he is watching closely.

“Are you willing to talk to us? Do you recognise that this is an interrogation?” Natasha continues. It sounds like the Miranda Rights of warfare, every answer or non-answer logged for the defence in case of court-marshal.

Bucky doesn’t even seem to hear her, his charcoal aura swirling slightly as if paused.

Tony loses his patience. He strides forward, arms loose and ready to grab as he says “Look, why don’t we just-?”

Steve is already in front of him, between him and Bucky, his hand out ready to catch Tony’s chest and his eyes showing exactly how serious he is. He has let go of his spirit like an anvil, the solid, immoveable, impenetrable weight of it slamming down like a portcullis. Steve has never, never thrown what the Alpha serum gave him around like this before, never challenged Tony, but this issue is non-negotiable.

Tony stops in his tracks. He is an Alpha too, but the kind of battle Steve is geared for requires more consideration than Tony has given it, and his spirit is not ready to engage such a formidable opponent. It’s against an Alpha’s nature to back down from a fight, but Steve has effectively shocked him into halting, if not retreating.

“Calm down,” Natasha says, her voice still level and emotionless. Steve recognises the importance of a level-head, knows he should retreat and stop defending their prisoner against his own team mates, but he also knows he is not going to do that. He stays exactly where he is, and does nothing to temper his spirit.

Natasha moves around him, standing at Bucky’s side. “Steve, what’s your read on him?” she asks.

Steve allows her this interest in Bucky only because he knows she cannot read their spirits. “He’s been hurt,” he tells her, settling himself somewhat. “He’s an Omega, but Bucky was always a Beta. They’ve broken him into this.” He is looking at her now as she is so close to Bucky, but he doesn’t clear out of Tony’s path either.

Natasha squats next to the chair and studies Bucky’s face and it makes Steve uncomfortable.

“Bucky Barnes,” she snaps, and watches for a reaction. Bucky’s body doesn’t even flinch, but something shifts darkly in his spirit, like a patch of the grey condensing into black.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” Steve offers quietly, his voice as mournful as it has been every other time he’s said that name since he lost Bucky.

Bucky does not move, but there is an ugly black compress in his aura, and Steve _knows_ , at the same time as he makes a wild guess, that that patch is Bucky’s name, and the poisonous aura is holding it back. 

Tony throws up his arms. “Call me when you’re done flying over the cuckoo’s nest,” he says, and stalks out of the room. Steve feels like a pressure has released and he turns around to face Bucky, crouching in front of his knees. He looks at Natasha, suddenly needing to be told that she can fix him.

Natasha is still looking at Bucky, and takes a breath to speak. What she says is not in English, but what Steve assumes is Russian. It is a short sentence, finishing in a word that sounds like ‘soldier’.

Steve is about to ask what she said, when Bucky croaks out a reply, also in Russian. Steve hears him as if in a dream, a shiver going through his whole body as he is catapulted back to his faraway youth, when Bucky drank too much bourbon and passed out on his couch, but not before grabbing Steve drunkenly and telling him how fucked up it all was. He never found out what was fucked up, because Bucky brushed it off the next day, obviously either embarrassed or wanting to protect Steve from his troubles. The voice is so familiar, just the same, buried under a mountain of gravel, like Rip Van Winkle waking up from his sleep, or like he’s been screaming until it hurt. The voice is just the same, but it’s disturbing because Steve doesn’t understand a word.

“What did-?”

Natasha holds up a hand to shush him, and exchanges a few more words with Bucky. Then she stands up and gestures Steve over to the wall.

“What did he say?” Steve begs her in a low voice.

“He responds when I talk to him like a Hydra agent, but I can’t get anywhere without the code-words or phrases. It looks like he was brainwashed. Coming out of the sedative made him think he’s being activated for a mission, but he won’t tell us anything unless I give him the password. At this point he’s a robot,” Natasha finishes, and looks over at Bucky with something like compassion under her fear, and that’s enough for Steve.

“Nat…” Steve begins. He knows he can bargain with her, but he doesn’t know how to phrase it. “He’s mine, you know that right? It’s too late for anything else.”

Natasha sighs and runs her hand through her hair. “Yeah, I got that,” she says, sounding conflicted. Steve knows it’s weird. Alphas claiming Omegas was like rivers flowing to the sea, boulders rolling down mountains, plants growing towards the sun. It was nature, and it was just the way of things, and it couldn’t be argued against or turned aside, but Steve knows how it looks, how it’s always looked. People without spirit-reads didn’t get it. It seemed barbaric and aggressive and excessively domineering.

When Steve was an Omega, he didn’t want it either. He always avoided Alphas, his skin crawling at the same time as his spirit reached for the Alpha in the room, calming and wanting things Steve didn’t want. He’d never wanted it as an Alpha either, this time avoiding Omegas and the pull of his spirit to wrap around them, pin them down and keep them safe. It hadn’t made relationships easy, but he knew it must be more common than people acknowledged for a person to chafe at the instincts of their souls.

Claimings happened, and civilised society could only live with it happening on the street and in coffee shops if it was dressed up and romanticised, so people talked about it like it was a good thing. An Alpha could grab an Omega on the street, ram their spirit down on them and force them into submission, and sure it didn’t happen every time, particularly if the Omega was unwilling, but if the Omega accepted it, then it was a lifelong bond. Sometimes there were weddings to help the narrative along, smooth the process and make it look better to people who didn’t really know what it was like.

People talked about soul mates and love at first sight, but if you had a spirit, you knew the truth. Alphas took, because they could and they were driven to by nature; Omegas allowed it because it was their nature and because fighting was difficult and potentially dangerous; and Betas watched, with no role and no rights, unable to satisfy either side.

“What are you going to do with him?” Nat asks, looking at Steve’s face. Steve knows what she is asking. Will he carry Bucky off and mate him. That was all part of the fascination for spirit-free people, part of the romance and the threat. It was what Alphas did and what Omegas wanted. Steve is not a rapist, but Natasha is looking at him as an Alpha making a claim, not as a friend or a hero.

Steve takes a deep steadying breath through his nose. Everything that is good in him says he doesn’t want Bucky that way, that he isn’t like that, but the hard Alpha core wants it. A claim isn’t complete without sex. Omegas could be under an Alphas protection without sex, it was how parents protected their children, cops protected witnesses, all kinds of relationships like that. But those bonds were temporary, and any Alpha who wanted to make a _real_ claim could break them.

Steve wants to tell himself he could just protect Bucky, but he has never been able to lie to himself. It’s too dangerous as Captain America. He knows his spirit will want to claim Bucky, and he honestly doesn’t know if he is strong enough to control his spirit so that it only makes half a bond, if he can hold it back when this is _Bucky_ , and he’s _sick_ , and there are _so many_ other Alphas in this building.

He would never force Bucky to do anything he didn’t want to do. That’s what Steve tells himself. But right then the Winter Soldier is in custody and heading for a life in a dark forgotten painful hole if Steve walks away. His Alpha core screams at him that he can’t protect Bucky – _Bucky_ – without a claim.

Steve trusts Natasha, and he wants to do this right, and be honest, and treat her with respect, and he knows at this point it’s a foregone conclusion. Like rain falling on the earth, it’s going to happen whether she wants it to or not.

“I’m going to put my mark on him for now,” Steve says. “I have to. I can’t let him go.”

Natasha nods, and Steve’s glad she isn’t fighting, but sad to see it at the same time. It was something all spirit-free people were taught: Don’t interfere, don’t get in the way of spirited relationships. No matter how bad it looks from the outside, it’s none of your business. They are greater forces at work than your opinion. Steve doesn’t want to be that kind of brute, but he would attack her if she so much as stood between him and Bucky right now.

Sometimes he despairs over what the Alpha serum has turned him into, what he could be if he stopped trying for even a moment, which is why he always tries so hard. But this is stronger than him.

He steps away from Natasha and crosses to squat in front of Bucky again. From this angle, he can see the crystal blue eyes staring at him through the strands of hair, watching him and scowling, glaring as he tries to scare the threat away. There is no recognition, just confusion and hate. Steve can feel the weight of the decision he’s making turning his stomach at the same time as he can feel his spirit stretching towards Bucky and his inviting, broken Omega aura.

“Bucky,” he croaks. He will at least talk. He will at least give Bucky a chance. “It’s me, Steve. We grew up together.” It’s nothing he hasn’t said before, but it’s starting at the beginning of their story, as he sees it. “You’ve been hurt, and I’m going to- I want to protect you. I want to claim you, as my Omega, because I’m an Alpha now and I can do that.” It feels stupid explaining what should be obvious, more deeply ingrained than instinct, but he doesn’t know how much Bucky is aware of, and maybe only words like “claim” will penetrate the fog he’s in. He doesn’t respond though.

“It’s pretty permanent, but it might help, and we’ve always been together, you and me. I hope if you’re in there, you won’t mind too much. I’ll never hurt you, Buck - I’d cut off my hands before I do that - but I’m not letting you go ever again. That would be true whether I claim you or not. And if you tell me you hate me when you’re all better, well, I’ll live with that.”

He swallows. This is his last moment as a single man, he is devoting the rest of his potentially very long life to a broken shell that doesn’t even remember him or speak to him, but it still feels like he can’t do it fast enough. It feels like the years between this moment and the last time he’d seen Bucky Barnes were about to blink out of existence, and he’s about to reach out and grab his arm and pull him back up into the train. It feels like every person he has ever saved was just practice for this, the big moment. It feels like he’s dreaming he’s laughing with Bucky on a bench in the summer, but he’s about to wake up, unless he gets on with what he is about to do.

His throat is dry and he is sweating, his heart hammering in his chest and honestly, there’s a pain in his gut like a knife that he knows is an impatient and desperate arousal as his body waits to have a beautiful, accommodating mate. He tells that part he will never give in, not if Bucky doesn’t want him to.

He can feel his spirit getting frantic but he holds it back.

“This is your chance, Buck,” he whispers, wishing Natasha wasn’t standing behind him. “I’m going to put my hands on you in a minute, and if you don’t want me to, you’ve got to say, or fight me, or spit in my eye, okay? The Bucky Barnes I know wouldn’t go down without a fight. You always looked out for me, so this is me looking out for you the best way I know how.”

Bucky hasn’t moved, or blinked, or reacted in any way. Just scowled. Steve shifts onto his knees, and reaches a hand out for Bucky’s bare forearm.

Bucky begins to snarl something in Russian, but Steve has already begun to slip the leash off his spirit, and it pours out of him like heat from a furnace, washing eagerly over the Omega in front of him, the torrent rushing. He was right, it is stronger than him, and it falls out of him just as his hand makes contact with Bucky’s skin.

As soon as their spirits make contact for real, Steve can’t help but moan out loud and he almost collapses into Bucky’s lap. Bucky, who is struggling in his chair and snapping in Russian, but whose spirit feels like a comfortable bed after a long hard day. It welcomes him like the breast of a lover. The broken, hurting aura seems to beg Steve’s to take it over, to sob in relief as the Alpha spirit greedily tugs it into itself, expanding and tucking its edges around the Omega. Steve’s strength flows into it and the strain of keeping itself together eases.

Bucky’s struggles escalate then slowly subside, but Steve barely notices. His hand might as well be welded onto Bucky’s arm. He feels like the first person Steve has ever touched, the warmest, the softest, the most alive. He can’t move. It’s all he can do not to drop his head into Bucky’s lap. That bladed feeling in his gut has turned hot and liquid, the pressure of swelling blood and pounding lust.

Steve’s head is filled with the feeling of marking Bucky’s aura, his red pushing in and soaking the edges of the grey. He wants to saturate it, heal all its wounds, but he can’t sink that far without erasing it entirely. He still gasps as it sparks against the dangling threads of Beta blue, trying to fight him off. It makes him even harder, his dick twitching in pleasure because it’s not a victory if there’s not a fight, and Steve is disgusted by himself.

Every caring and nurturing instinct in him, everything that makes him fight, that makes him a hero, latches onto the Omega spirit like they have teeth. Here now is his reason for living, the owner of everything he has. Here is the creature that will sleep in his bed, eat his food, pleasure him and receive his pleasure in turn. Here is the man that owns Steve’s body as if it is his own. He will be denied nothing and that does not scare Steve. The effect is all the more powerful because of the state the spirit is in, so chaotic and tired and pained. He hasn’t healed it entirely, he can tell, and it makes him almost crazy with the desire to take care of it. He wants to lick it to make the torn edges stick together, as if Bucky was ripped homework.

He doesn’t know how long he kneels there, with just his hand on Bucky’s arm, his entire body, heart, mind, and soul utterly wrecked by what’s happened. Eventually his breathing calms, and he forces himself to look up at Bucky’s face, becoming aware again that Natasha has just seen the most sacred thing that happens on this planet. Steve comforts himself that at least she couldn’t see their spirits and the lightshow they must have put on. She hasn’t seen the greedy way his spirit scooped Bucky’s up, or the needy way it welcomed him. She might have seen Bucky struggle and Steve collapse, maybe it looked like Steve had forced it on him and maybe he had, but she hasn’t seen them join for the first time, become intimate. That’s important.

Bucky is watching him, leaning back in the chair now but his head is still hanging so he can look down at Steve. He doesn’t look angry anymore. He looks a little stunned, a little panicked, but he is still, and Steve can feel the satisfied calm radiating off his spirit as if it was buried in his own chest. Lust rears up inside him as his Alpha core reminds him what could make this moment _even_ _better_ , but he pushes it away. Now he has his sense back, he knows this is not about that. This is Bucky, for God’s sake. It will be weird to be attracted to him, but it’s a small price to pay if he can keep the man safe and with him for the rest of his life.

He watches Bucky watch him, waiting for some kind of reaction. What they have just done is a fundamental change to the deepest, innermost part of themselves. There is no way whatever was done to Bucky could keep him from feeling it, from feeling that he belongs to Steve now.

Nothing seems to be forthcoming though, and Steve swallows a lump of disappointment. He might have claimed Bucky and offered him a measure of protection from what SHIELD and the American government will want to do to him, but he hasn’t healed him. He struggles to his feet, and begins removing the restraints, freeing Bucky from the chair.

“Steve…” speaks Natasha from behind him.

“It’s done now,” Steve tells her. “I’m taking him to my room. I won’t let him leave the building, but he needs to be with me now.”

“That’s… Steve, he’s…” Nat is clearly struggling for the words to tell an Alpha in the middle of claiming his new Omega that his plan is a bad one, illegal and counter to the interests of the U.S. government, the military agency currently employing him, and in fact the population of the world. Steve whirls on her, his emotions frayed and his reactions guided by instinct.

He is about to do something, but a hand seizes his arm. He turns and Bucky is staring at where he has grabbed Steve’s arm as if he doesn’t understand it himself. The touch sends Steve’s protective instincts through the roof even as his skin tingles warm with lust. Suddenly all he can think about is Bucky.

Bucky tears his gaze away from where he is touching Steve, and looks him in the eye.

“Alpha,” he croaks. The inflection is wrong, it’s clear that Bucky is saying it in Russian, but it’s the same word.

“Nat, I’m taking him,” Steve repeats, then grabs Bucky out of the chair and puts him on his feet, snatching his hand and pulling him out of the room, his bubble wrapped metal arm wobbling and sticking out, the hospital gown flapping as they leave.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Steve gets Bucky to his quarters without any alarms sounding or soldiers trying to stop them. Steve walks quickly and keeps his head down, but his eyes watch from under his brow for any threat in the faces of the few people they pass, but they only look startled. As well they might. Captain America is dragging a man in a hospital gown and bubble wrap through the corridors by the hand, but perhaps because he is Captain America no one questions it. Everyone hurries out of his way, and he does not let go of Bucky’s hand. He can feel Bucky’s every step through the vibrations in the floor and the walls, and Bucky’s body and the hand Steve is holding. Bucky is off-balance but he is not hurrying, not panicking.

They get to Steve’s quarters and Steve tugs Bucky inside, and then quickly locks the door behind them. He feels safe enough to let go of Bucky’s hand to do so, and when he turns around, Bucky hasn’t moved, is just watching him. It is probably just Steve’s Alpha hormones messing with his head, but Bucky looks better. He looks healthy, his skin dewy and flushed. His charcoal aura is draped in shreds of Steve’s red, the semi-permanent mark of his claiming.

Obviously Steve has never had an Omega before. He has heard the stories, been told what to expect. But this feels… Bucky looks at him and he might as well be lying on Steve’s bed, holding his arms out for Steve to fill. But he’s not, so Steve breaks his eyes away, realising as he looks at the floor that he has actually taken a couple of steps away from the door, advancing on Bucky without even noticing.

It’s easier when he’s not looking at Bucky. As he stares at the dark wooden flooring, it hits him again that he has got Bucky back.

He won’t hurt him. He won’t do the things they used to be so scared would happen to Steve, he won’t become the Alpha Bucky always protected him from. With that in mind, he tries to take a deep steadying breath through his nose. It shakes on the way in, because he can smell Bucky, and the scent makes Steve tremble.

“Maybe you’d like to take a shower,” Steve says, eyes pinned to the floor, one hand fisted in his own shirt while the other hovers behind him, as if trying not to let go of the door.

Bucky does not move, so Steve is forced to look at him. His expression hasn’t changed. It’s like Steve is just an interesting piece of art, something to focus on, but nothing else.

“Here, I’ll cut you out of that…” He can’t quite bring himself to say bubble wrap because it’s too ridiculous; too ridiculous that Bucky Barnes has his arm encased in bubble wrap and they’re not laughing about it; too ridiculous that Iron Man, SHIELD’s best inventor, thought this was the best way to incapacitate the Winter Soldier, Hydra’s deadliest assassin.

Steve moves to a bureau and pulls out a pair of scissors he never bought, but this apartment came fully stocked. As soon as he does, a snarl comes from Bucky, Steve’s only warning as the Omega charges him, trying to break his femur with a strong stomp to his thigh. Steve drops the scissors and they fall back in the drawer as he spins, grabbing what he can of Bucky’s arms to protect himself. Bucky’s momentum takes them both to the floor, and for a single instant, Steve has Bucky on top of him, a raging, heavy pile of bones and muscle. Bucky’s hair falls forward, and his eyes are so blue, even as they don’t look anything like they used to.

Then Steve manages to roll them, Bucky fighting him but there’s really no question about it, and Steve uses the weight of his body to pin Bucky to the floor. Steve’s shoulders are broader than Bucky’s and he is slightly taller. Bucky’s legs split so he can push his feet against the floor, and Steve’s knees hit the wood hard enough to hurt, but it’s immediately forgotten.

He pins Bucky, his hands still on Bucky’s arms, one hot hard flexing flesh, one round squeaky plastic, and he shushes him. It’s instinct, one he didn’t know he had. He dips his head until his mouth is next to Bucky’s ear, so Bucky doesn’t have to look at his face and might be able to see the sky through the window over his shoulder. It’s as close as a hug as he can get without Bucky breaking his neck.

“Shh, shh, shh,” he repeats endlessly until Bucky stops struggling. He knows Bucky only went for him because he saw the scissors and thought Steve was going to hurt him. He knows this made Bucky feel betrayed because instinctively he knows his Alpha should not hurt him. This made him angry. And Steve knows he was scared because people have come at Bucky with a blade before, people he trusted. And he knows he was trained to fight back before thinking. Steve knows these things because he can almost feel Bucky’s emotions, pressed this close to him, and he knows how Hydra operate, and he knows Bucky wouldn’t be what he is now voluntarily.

Bucky goes still, and Steve thinks he feels him accept that he misread the situation, but the suspicion is still there. Something else is there too, something warm and growing, and he can feel then, as if his brain only just remembers that part of him exists, that Bucky is half hard. With the tiniest of motions, and the faintest of noises, just a breath, Bucky lifts his hips, pushing against Steve.

Steve swallows hard as his dick swells, answering the call. It is his _duty_ to take care of his Omega in _all_ things, his spirit tells him, but Steve doesn’t let it have control. His Omega needs him, is _needing_ , his spirit insists, but Steve repeats to himself that he will not be that kind of Alpha. He claimed Bucky to help him. It’s not about sex.

He pulls himself up, moving his knees to straddle Bucky’s stomach. Bucky looks at him with that same empty, assessing gaze. Steve moves the bubble wrap and starts pulling at the joins, snapping the tape which requires a surprising amount of effort. Bucky turns his head to watch, but he doesn’t help or move.

Finally, Steve is pulling off the last rags of the plastic to reveal Bucky’s prosthetic arm like an unwrapped Christmas present. The metal glints deadly like an atom bomb. A sliver of apprehension goes through Steve at the sight of it, and the understanding of what this thing can do. Has he done the right thing? Has he just condemned them to a fight? But he had to do it. He wants Bucky to trust him. He won’t be an Alpha who keeps his Omega restrained. He and Bucky are best friends.

Bucky flexes the hand and Steve expects to hear motors whirring or clicking, but there’s nothing. The motion is perfectly smooth and natural. Now Bucky is lying under him with the living arm bent up next to his head, and the metal one lying outstretched. Steve clambers off him, then offers him a hand to help him up. Bucky stares at it for an awkwardly long time, but Steve doesn’t falter, just pushes trust through their bond, and Bucky takes his hand so Steve can pull him up. The touch is flesh to flesh, and Steve wonders if he should have offered his other hand, made a point of touching the metal hand, accepting it.

“How about that shower?” he says. Bucky doesn’t reply, but he does follow Steve when he leads him through to the bedroom and the en-suite. This apartment is not meant for entertaining because this is the only bathroom. Steve gestures to it. The door is open. Bucky looks at it blankly, then back at Steve as if for direction.

Steve walks into the bathroom. It’s too small for him so the both of them would be a squeeze, and it’s a bad place for a fight, he recognises. But he turns on the shower and lets it run, then manoeuvres back out. Bucky looks at the shower, but doesn’t move, so Steve, or maybe just Steve’s hands on their own, lift and begin to strip Bucky out of the hospital gown. It is tied loosely at the back, and Bucky is naked underneath. The papery gown slips from Bucky’s shoulders then gets stuck, so Steve pulls it off. He tries not to do it quickly or slowly, he tries to do it clinically, normally, but he still feels like a stage magician whipping away a tablecloth.

Steve looks. God, he can’t help himself. He’s seen Bucky naked before, more times than he can count, but only a few times as an adult, and this was seventy years ago, back when they were both normal. Back then, Bucky had looked like a healthy young man in his prime, without the muscle of an Alpha or the delicacy of an Omega. Steve used to envy Bucky’s body, because it could walk down the street without risk.

Now Bucky’s body is bigger and harder and tougher. Now he is muscle-bound like an Alpha, though not like Steve, and his muscles twist his skin. He has been hurt a lot, all over, and Steve can only see what’s scarred, not the greater number of smaller hurts Bucky has undoubtedly suffered. The skin around the metal shoulder looks unhappy somehow, uneven, puckered, as if the arm was pushed on too tight, too deep.

Steve’s breath is coming fast because his Omega is naked in front of him and blood is rushing into his dick, making him feel like he’s going to over-balance, pitch forward onto Bucky so he can feel that skin, and maybe it won’t be an accident, and maybe he’ll take them over to the wall, where he can slide his thigh between Bucky’s legs and-

Bucky looks back at him, the long hair suddenly looking decadent over his bare shoulders, and as Steve stares at his body, he sees Bucky’s dick begin to grow, and lift, and he can feel the question in it through their bond.

“Go,” Steve rasps, throwing his arm out towards the shower, and after another inquisitive second, Bucky complies and moves away into the bathroom, climbing into the shower cubicle but not sliding the door shut behind him.

Steve stays frozen, forcing himself not to follow, close the distance, turn Bucky towards the wall, and do it all. Instead he makes himself go and sit on the bed. He knows he has to leave the bathroom door open. Bucky is too dangerous to be left alone in there. Steve has to watch him, as a SHIELD agent. So he watches as Bucky showers, the glass steaming from the bottom up.

Bucky showers quickly and efficiently, but the movements are not robotic or detached. He looks normal, except for the blank look on his face and the metal arm. He washes his hair, tipping his head back into the spray, and Steve feels like he has been stabbed. He worries absently whether it’s alright to get the metal arm wet, and whether the interlocking parts will snag in Bucky’s hair.

Bucky is soon finished, and he climbs out dripping. He looks at Steve expectantly, a puddle forming on the floor, and Steve wonders now how much of his mind is really left. He hurries over, snagging his towel off the rack and rubbing Bucky down. Bucky watches him do it without helping or fighting. Steve feels like Bucky is testing him, and is confused by Steve’s responses. Steve hopes it’s true, because then Bucky is only pretending to be this helpless and damaged.

When Bucky is dry, Steve leads him out of the bathroom by holding his arms gently and walking backwards. He leaves Bucky standing on the bedroom carpet and digs out clothes for him to wear. He gets him sweatpants and a T-shirt, because they’re soft, and Steve often wears them to work out, so although they’re clean now, he hopes his scent is still woven into the fabric.

“Put these on,” he says, and Bucky pauses, looking at the pile, and then dresses, leaving Steve holding the shirt and watching Bucky as he pulls on the pants. The lust twists in Steve again, drilling into him, hollowing him out. The things they could be doing - _should_ be doing - play like a movie he can’t look away from behind his eyes.

When Bucky is finished, Steve asks “Are you hungry?” Again Bucky does not reply, but Steve believes more and more that Bucky does understand him, and is just studying his actions and responses. “Well, I could eat. Kitchen’s this way,” Steve announces, answering his own question in Bucky’s stead before leaving the bedroom.

Bucky stands and watches Steve as he makes them both sandwiches. It keeps Steve’s hands busy and he carefully does not use knives, choosing only pre-sliced meats and cheeses, and spreading mayo with the back of a spoon. Steve puts them both on plates and puts them down on the breakfast bar. He carries a stool from one side to the other, so he and Bucky can sit opposite each other. Once he is settled, he gestures to the other plate.

“Sit. Eat.”

Bucky joins him and gulps the sandwich down with surprising speed and lack of relish, and when he is finished he straightens as if it was never there. Steve gets an unhappy vision of Bucky eating quickly on a snowy bank, in a muddy trench, stealing food on the run. Eating wouldn’t be part of his mission, just a necessary inconvenience rarely attended to.

Steve puts his unfinished sandwich down and stands up to run Bucky a big glass of water from the tap. He puts it in front of Bucky and watches as the man immediately drains the whole glass in one go, almost desperately. He had been on a drip less than two hours ago. He couldn’t be that parched. He must just be drinking because the water was there and he didn’t know when it would be again.

Steve fills the glass again and puts it in front of his own plate, then goes back to his sandwich. He tries to let the sensory joy of taste and the physical process of chewing and swallowing distract him from what he wants to do to Bucky - which at the moment is bend him over the arm of the couch, cover his back, and fill his ears with how much he means to Steve and how much Steve missed him and how lost Steve was without him, while his cock fills his sweet hole, pushing his come deeper inside with every thrust, staining his Omega with Steve’s mark and protection.

 Steve adjusts his pants and cleans up their plates.

After they eat, Steve tells him all he knows about the modern world, SHIELD, and Hydra. He tells him about the internet and how World War II ended, and about being preserved in ice, and woken up, and the Avengers. He tells him everything as he would have wanted to be told. He talks because he is at a loss what else to do. He doesn’t just want to turn on the TV and show Bucky the news, and he doesn’t want to open the front door and leave the apartment either. He has to keep talking, because otherwise he is going to want to touch Bucky and he won’t do that.

At one point Bucky stands up and walks through to the bedroom. Steve jumps up and follows him, calling him, but he retreats sharply when he sees Bucky is peeing, the bathroom door open. The toilet flushes, and the tap comes on, but then it just runs. Steve peeks and sees Bucky is standing shirtless before the sink, staring at the mirror, a frown on his face.

Steve approaches carefully. “Buck?” he calls tentatively. He is able to get close enough to stand next to Bucky, forced into his space by the small bathroom. He turns the tap off. He looks in the mirror, but he can’t see anything other than their reflection. “Bucky? What’s wrong?” he almost whispers.

He can feel something vibrating in Bucky’s spirit, like something is trying to pull the two sides of that painful wound apart. He doesn’t like it. Steve’s spirit is still protecting Bucky’s from itself, holding it together, so whatever it is can’t take hold, its strength sapped by the warm domination Steve has put in place.

Bucky stares at himself for a long time, and Steve stays at his shoulder, watching his friend’s eyes in the mirror, wondering what would be happening now if not for the claim Steve put on him, and whether Bucky – the old Bucky – was trying to fight his way to the surface, triggered by the sight of his own face. Because of that hope, Steve does nothing to interrupt, just waits.

Until, that is, Bucky’s eyes drop to his silver shoulder, and his living hand drifts up to touch it dreamily. Then, with a single cruelly abrupt motion accompanied by a gritted jaw, Bucky pushes his thumb under the metal, the same way Steve would push his thumb into an orange to separate the two halves.

Bucky doesn’t make a sound. Blood immediately runs down his arm, and Steve’s hands are on him, one hand on his shoulder, one on the opposite wrist, pulling his hand away.

“No, no, no, no. Bucky, no, don’t do that,” Steve is saying, half way between scolding and begging. He washes Bucky’s bloody hand under the tap and cleans the blood off his arm. He fishes a first aid kit from under the sink, and his hands are shaking as he opens it on the counter, pulling out a gauze pad. He presses the pad to Bucky’s shoulder, but he can feel that the solid metal doesn’t give, and the pad is quickly soaked.

He grabs the first aid kit and pushes Bucky backwards into the bedroom, forcing him to lie down on the bed, though he offers no resistance. He is looking at Steve just as he always has, as if calmly studying his frantic reactions, as if he doesn’t even feel the pain. Steve sits next to him and switches the pad for a new one, hoping this angle is better.

“Why did you do that, Buck?” he murmurs, shaking his head, almost afraid to look into Bucky’s eyes. It’s not a real question, he knows why Bucky did that. The real Bucky _was_ in there, somewhere, and Hydra gave him that arm.

Steve tells himself it’s just a wound. He couldn’t have done that much damage, and it’ll heal on its own. They can’t give him stitches under that metal, and they can’t take the metal off, not safely. Steve uses these excuses because he doesn’t want to take Bucky to Medical. He doesn’t want to take him out of this apartment, he doesn’t want to lose control of him again, and he doesn’t want anyone to know that he didn’t keep his Omega safe.

He sighs and shakes his head. The bleeding seems to be slowing down.

Steve meets Bucky’s eyes again, and reaches out with his spirit. That’s how it will feel to Bucky, at first, but Steve doesn’t turn it off, he keeps pouring it on, slowly like honey. Bucky’s eyes widen a fraction, and his spirit shakes, trying to escape, but it’s covered too quickly, and soon Steve has Bucky’s spirit surrounded. He holds it gently and dominates it, forcing warm safe feelings onto it, and it flutters like the heartbeat of a tiny bird held in his palm. Bucky relaxes, his eyes drooping. Steve looks at him.

He didn’t want to do this. It makes it too tempting to just take what he wants, to make Bucky feel what he wants him to feel. It makes it hard to stay out of Bucky’s head. Bucky feels too good to him like this. Perfect, like he’s already under him and all Steve has to do is open his mouth and lick.

Steve increases the pressure and issues one simple command. “Sleep.” His voice is soft and his spirit makes sure it sounds like a good idea to Bucky, an order he wants to follow. Bucky drops off almost instantly, though Steve does feel some resistance from him, as much panic as he can manage with Steve’s spirit muffling everything for him.

Steve sits with him, holding gauze pads to his shoulder until the bleeding stops, even though the moment feels tainted now. Then he cleans up, and by then it’s late. Steve doesn’t want to climb into bed with Bucky, precisely because of how much he does want it, but he has no choice. He needs close contact if he’s going to keep Bucky subdued, and it’s too dangerous to let Bucky wake up on his own, when Steve is asleep. Steve can’t sleep on the couch, because Bucky will either escape or kill him, or both.

So Steve lies down on the other side of the bed and folds the cover over Bucky like a calzone. Steve is a super soldier and will make do without covers. He rolls onto his side and throws his arm over Bucky’s chest, hard under the padding of the duvet. Then he closes his eyes and relaxes, visualising his aura running off him into a puddle around Bucky. He allows himself to snuggle briefly, shifting, holding Bucky tighter, drawing in his scent, placing his nose against Bucky’s bare shoulder. His spirit thrills at holding his Omega, but everything that is Steve quietly thanks God for preserving Bucky and giving him back to him again.


	4. Chapter 4

They are woken in the morning by a knock on the front door. Steve lifts his head and checks the clock. It is exactly 8am. Steve is half-asleep but ready to fight. The majority of him wants to stay in this bed and keep Bucky warm and calm in a blanket of his spirit, and just ignore whoever is trying to disturb them. A small part of him wants to charge out there and rip them apart before coming back.

Bucky wakes up too, and Steve can feel the spinning torrent of panic and fear and confusion stir him. Bucky looks around frantically, shooting up in the bed, then his eyes spot Steve and settle on him, and Steve can feel him calm as he remembers the day before. He remembers Steve, even if it is the current Steve, and remembers where he is, and settles back into the reticent watchfulness he has maintained since Steve brought him here.

The precision of the hour tells Steve that, probably thanks to Natasha, he and Bucky were given a night to complete the claiming. It was either a favour, or because no one wanted to challenge Captain America at a time like that. But it’s the morning now, and it is assumed that he and Bucky have mated, and the legalities can’t be held at bay any longer. SHIELD wants to interrogate Bucky.

Steve sighs internally, his peaceful morning lost now that Bucky has been spooked. He rolls onto his back and rubs his hand over his face and through his hair.

“I’ll go see who it is,” he says, his voice thick with sleep. He is wearing a vest and boxers, and his balls ache. He is not in his best mood. He also recognises the risk in leaving Bucky alone in the bedroom, where he could jump out of the window, lock himself in the bathroom, turn a shard of broken mirror into a weapon. But he doesn’t want to take Bucky with him to the front door, not when the man’s skin smells warm and like Steve’s bed, and any spirited person will be able to tell they haven’t mated like they were supposed to and wonder why. He doesn’t know who is at the door, and if they’re a threat, he doesn’t want Bucky in the room.

He walks through to the front door, and reaches it just as they knock again. “Who is it?” he calls.

“It’s me,” answers Natasha, with her careful and entirely fabricated American accent.

Steve unlocks and pulls the door open, standing in the gap. Facing him is Natasha, flanked by Fury and Tony, who are backed up by a team in tactical gear. “Expecting a fight?” he asks.

“Just a precaution,” Fury tells him. It’s probably a lie, but with Fury there’s no such thing as the truth.

“You know why we’re here, Cap, so don’t make this harder than it has to be,” Tony adds, and Steve fixes him with a glare, his spirit flaring.

“Don’t threaten me, Tony. Not now, and not about this,” Steve replies.

“Steve…” It’s Natasha’s turn now. The level-headed peace-keeper, in theory. “You know this has to happen. But it doesn’t have to hurt. We can play it your way.”

She isn’t even spirited but she can talk to an Alpha better than Tony, though Steve supposes two Alphas are always going to fight when it comes to an Omega. And she’s right. Steve knows that it will be easier to take control of this situation, than to refuse and probably end up having to run off with Bucky.

“No goons,” he says.

“No goons,” Nat agrees. Fury seems reluctant, but he gives them the nod and the soldiers step back.

“And Tony waits here,” Steve demands.

“What? Why?” Tony says, affronted.

Steve shrugs, but levels a steady stare at him. “You’re an Alpha. I can’t let you in.”

“Tony’s coming. We need him to read your spirits for us,” Fury argues.

“I can do that,” Steve tells him with a frown.

“We need someone on our side to do it,” Fury replies, staring Steve down.

So that’s it. The lines have already been drawn.

“Fine. Come inside. We haven’t had breakfast yet.” Steve steps back to let them in. As Tony passes he stops him with a hand on his chest and says quietly “If you do anything I don’t like, it will be a fight between us. You’re an Alpha, and Bucky’s my Omega. You understand.” He looks into Tony’s eyes, and while the man’s spirit flares at the challenge, Tony nods, and brushes it off with a smirk.

Steve knows Tony is not really interested in Bucky. He has been in love with Pepper as long as Steve has known him, but Pepper isn’t spirited. They can’t have the kind of bond an Alpha and an Omega can, and it’s a recurring problem in their relationship. As far as Tony’s spirit is concerned, it is unmated, which means it – if not Tony – is going to at least notice Bucky. Steve wants to make it very clear that that door is closed, locked, for Tony.

Steve shuts the door behind them and moves to retrieve Bucky from the bedroom, only to find that Bucky is standing in the open doorway, shirtless and barefoot, wearing Steve’s sweatpants, with his dark hair all messy and his metal arm on display. Steve’s breath trips at the sight, but Bucky looks over the visitors, then looks to Steve. He seems wary, confused and hurt. Paranoid. He doesn’t like having people in the flat and he wonders why Steve has let them in.

Steve moves quickly to stand between Bucky and the others.

“Well, Fury, they haven’t fucked,” Tony announces succinctly, folding his arms.

Steve glares at him, but Tony does not display anything that constitutes a threat, neither anger nor lust.

“That doesn’t change anything,” Steve tells the room. “He’s still mine.” But he knows it’s not true. They can take Bucky away from him. It would take all of SHIELD, but with the claim unfinished, Bucky shares none of Steve’s rights here.

Fury holds up a hand. “Calm down, Rogers. The plan hasn’t changed.”

Steve is acutely aware that he has not been told the plan, so this does not reassure him. “We just woke up. We’re going to have breakfast. Why don’t you take a seat?” he says, gesturing to the couch and armchair circled towards the TV.

Fury sighs at the delay then moves for the couch. Tony throws himself into the armchair, and drops his heels onto the coffee table. Natasha sits silently. They now have their backs to Steve and Bucky. Steve hurries to Bucky’s side, touching his arm lightly to get his attention and dipping his head to speak quietly.

“Why don’t you go put some clothes on? I’ll cook up some food for us,” he says, and his voice is hopeful and entreating.

Bucky watches him, then moves back into the bedroom, and Steve lets out a sigh of relief.

“Not much of a talker, is he?” Tony calls over.

Steve grumbles, almost growls, in response, and starts pulling out pans and bowls, and puts a pot of coffee on. He makes scrambled eggs, something he’s known how to make since his pre-serum days, and something he has fed to Bucky before. He also makes piles of toast. He can eat a lot, and Bucky eats like he’s starved.

Bucky comes back and hovers at the edge of the kitchen, watching Steve, but there are no knives being used so everything is calm. Bucky has put on a T-shirt with SHIELD printed on the front, and Steve wonders if it is a joke, camouflage, a statement of allegiance, or if Bucky is just so far gone that he didn’t even notice. He hasn’t put on any socks, and has kept the same sweatpants. Steve won’t make him change if that’s what he wants to wear. An absurd flush of warmth blooms in Steve that Bucky did what Steve asked. He understands him, and doesn’t hate him at least.

Steve lays out their plates on the breakfast island like the night before, and sets a mug of steaming black coffee so thick the spoon could stand up in it on Bucky’s side. Bucky looks at the others in the living room, and Steve moves the mug to the identical plate he was going to take, so that now Bucky’s back will be to the kitchen, and he can keep the strangers in sight. This puts Bucky in the room with all the knives, but Steve isn’t worried about that.

Steve pours his own coffee with milk and sugar, then takes his seat and starts to eat. Bucky sits down and eats too, draining the coffee. Steve gets up when Bucky is almost finished and pours him a big glass of water, and Bucky turns to keep him in sight the entire time Steve is behind him. When Steve gives him the water, Bucky drains it in one go again. Steve pours him more coffee, hoping that maybe he’ll notice it’s exactly the way he likes it.

When they’ve both finished eating, Steve moves their plates into the sink, and announces to their guests, “We’re going to brush our teeth.” Then he puts his hands on Bucky’s shoulders and steers him through the bedroom and into the small bathroom.

Bucky immediately spins in his hold and dodges around him, so that Steve is not between him and the door. Steve makes a mental note of that, and is also mildly surprised and disproportionately pleased that Bucky stops there, instead of trying to fight his way out. He grins and Bucky miraculously manages to look uncomfortable, his eyes darting away.

Steve gets him a spare toothbrush from under the sink, puts toothpaste on his own, then hands the tube to Bucky, shoving the brush in his mouth. He watches to see if Bucky copies him, and he does, and they stand and brush their teeth together. Steve is a little impeded by the stupid smile that keeps trying to break out, but Bucky is just so cute, and hasn’t tried to kill him in at least ten hours, maybe even twelve. He feels like Bucky is getting better, and he spent last night with him sort of in his arms, and safely sequestered in his spirit without complaint.

He has Bucky back, and it makes him feel like a teenager again.

Steve spits, rinses, and watches as Bucky does the same. This morning there are no incidents with the mirror or Bucky trying to tear his arm off. Steve considers Bucky, and notices that the man needs a shave, a dark scruff shadowing his jaw, but it can wait. His faith in Bucky’s recovery does not extend to either of them applying a razor to his throat. The shower Steve would normally take will also have to wait. He doesn’t want to leave Bucky at the mercy of the others while he’s wet and naked.

So he moves into the bedroom and dresses. Bucky watches him as always, but while Steve suffers a minor twinge of shyness when changing out of his boxers, he is primarily an Alpha in the presence of his mate. He wants to show Bucky how strong he is. He wants to Bucky to see him and want him and feel safe. He is using Bucky’s Omega instincts against him, or trying to. He thinks Bucky has those instincts, based on what he felt the day before when he had him pinned, but Bucky was born a Beta. He might not feel the draw, the lust, the need to be protected that Omegas are supposed to feel around Alphas. That thought withers Steve’s confidence that their bond is mutual, that Bucky – the old Bucky – would approve of what he has done to keep him safe.

Steve dresses in his Captain America uniform. He wants to make it clear exactly who he is, and by extension, who Bucky is, and what anyone thinking of taking them on would be facing. Not to mention it’s bulletproof, just in case things go bad.

When he looks at Bucky again he is frowning, and Steve’s confidence takes another blow. He moves closer to him, and knocks the ajar door closed. Steve stands in front of Bucky and looks into his eyes. “You know I’ll never hurt you, Buck. I’ll never let anyone hurt you. Now, you might not like them talking to you, but they will never hurt you. They’ll never tie you down, okay? I won’t let them. So please don’t try to kill them. I know you don’t mean it, that it’s whatever was done to you talking, not the real you, but I want to bring you back here tonight, so try to control it. I understand if you can’t, that’s when I’ll step in, but I want you to know that you can trust me. I’m going to take care of you.”

Steve continues to stare into Bucky’s blue eyes, hoping for any kind of response. Granted, this close to him, the response he’s hoping for is a physical one, he can’t help it, but he’s still surprised when Bucky wets his lips and inhales to speak.

“Captain America,” he snaps out, heavily accented with Russian, his lip curling into a sneer as he casts his gaze up and down Steve’s body.

Steve is so happy to get words from him that he doesn’t care what was said. “Yes, yes!” he encourages, nodding and stepping closer, almost taking Bucky’s hands in his but stopping himself.

Then Bucky spits something out, a disdainful expression on his face, full of contempt.

“What? What does that mean? Bucky? Say it again.”

“Captain America,” he says, nodding at Steve’s uniform. Then he repeats the same single syllable word.

“I don’t know what that means,” Steve breathes, lost, his eyes desperate, but Bucky does not elaborate or repeat it. Silence descends again, and Bucky seems to have said everything he wants to say.

“Okay,” he concedes, and he gestures them out of the room and says “Come on,” and Bucky follows him.

The others look up as Steve and Bucky enter, and Steve watches their expression as his outfit registers. “Ready?” he says, his voice steady and cold.

They get to their feet and lead them out of the apartment. Steve makes sure no one is at Bucky’s back and walks in front of him, Fury and Natasha leading. Tony falls into step beside him and asks “So how is it exactly that our fair assassin escaped being Rogered last night?”

Steve glares at him, and says “Tony, for once in your life, shut up.”

They make their way to the interrogation cells, stopping first at the one they were in the day before, with the chair with the straps, and Steve shakes his head. “Not this one.”

“He needs to be restrained,” argues Fury.

“I will restrain him if necessary,” Steve retorts.

“You are putting us all at risk,” Fury almost shouts, apparently losing his patience.

Steve draws himself up. “I make decisions about him. Me. No one else. So we can either work together and compromise, or you can fight us both.”

Fury stiffens, and gets in Steve’s face trying to intimidate him. “Don’t think I can’t take you out, Rogers,” he growls.

“Don’t think I’m the same man I was yesterday, Sir,” Steve tacks the ‘Sir’ on to make a point, that he is willing to play along for now, but he doesn’t give a shit what Fury or anyone else thinks. He cannot be talked to or reasoned with. Fury’s intimidation tactics would undoubtedly work on almost anyone, but at this point, Steve would fight a mountain if it went after Bucky. Fury is fighting a losing battle.

“SHIELD doesn’t need a loose cannon,” Fury pushes back.

“Then don’t cut me loose,” Steve suggests.

Tony pushes between them. “Come on, guys, it’s just a room,” he says, and they reluctantly back off from each other. Steve glances over his shoulder to check on Bucky, and he is still there, watching him, but he has gone pale, and his fingers ghost over missing holsters.

Steve nods down the corridor, toward the interview rooms that have tables and no restraints on the chairs. “We’ll go there.”

Fury complies, begrudgingly. The room they pick is standard. A metal table, with bolts where handcuffs can be attached. Two metal chairs. A two-way mirror. Cameras. Fury unlocks the door and stands back, intending Bucky and Steve to go first. Steve turns to Bucky and can already feel the resistance, the swirls of panic moving the edges of his aura. Steve projects calm, trustworthy authority and takes Bucky’s arm.

“Come on,” he says, and his voice is soothing and soft and enticing, while he makes his aura undeniable steel.

Bucky staggers, but he can’t fight Steve. He isn’t scared enough to try as hard as he could, and the effort he puts into it isn’t enough. So Steve gently steers him into the room, making sure he is between Bucky and the others at all times, and hopes that tells Bucky that he’s trying.

He gets Bucky seated on the side of the table facing the mirror, which he doesn’t like but it’s standard procedure, and radiates waves of _it’s okay, I’m here, I’ll protect you_. He gets nothing back from Bucky, never anything deliberate anyway, nothing Bucky has wanted to share with him, but he doesn’t take it personally. This was never about actually mating, this was about keeping Bucky safe. Bucky is his best friend, not his lover.

Natasha sits opposite Bucky, with Fury and Tony flanking her. Steve stands at Bucky’s shoulder, almost at parade rest, keeping one hand on his shoulder to keep them connected.

Natasha begins the questioning, but again, Bucky will not answer any question that isn’t in Russian, and he will only reply in Russian too. This time there is no finding a base line. Steve hears the word Hydra, and doctor, in almost every question. A couple of times he hears his name, and the word ‘alpha’.

Steve pays close attention to what Bucky is feeling. He doesn’t want Bucky to get upset, and is laying down a calming blanket that should keep him peaceful at least. Steve tries to project honesty into Bucky, but there is a deep steel core in him that never wavers, and his answers come too quickly, too easily, and it makes Steve think Bucky is not telling the truth. Steve doesn’t care; he knows it’s not Bucky’s fault, and he doesn’t care if they never learn anything from him as long as Steve gets to keep him. But it worries him, because someone put that steel there. The Bucky he knew was an honest man, and a terrible liar.

At the end of maybe thirty questions, Natasha sighs quietly through her nose and doesn’t ask another question. “He needs psychiatric help,” she says.

Tony snorts loudly before anyone else can say anything. “Well, we knew _that_ ,” he says.

Everyone ignores him. “Did you get anything out of him?” Fury asks.

Natasha looks unsure for a moment. “Let’s talk outside,” she says.

Fury and Tony follow her out of the interrogation room, and Steve reluctantly follows. He feels his spirit stretch thin as he attempts to keep it wrapped around Bucky, and he makes sure there is no one between them and Bucky is safe when he leaves the room and pulls the door ajar. He doesn’t close it, because he doesn’t trust it not to lock behind him.

“I didn’t get anything we can use against Hydra,” Natasha is explaining. “He won’t say anything about where he’s been or what missions he’s been on. He won’t give me anything on the agents we already know about, or anything on the ones he’s met. He just repeats this propaganda, like a Hydra leaflet, about how wicked the West is, how evil the U.S. government is, how noble and strong Hydra is. It’s real Cold War stuff. I’ve got nothing concrete.” She sounds frustrated.

“Did he say anything about me?” Steve asks, unable to hold it back.

Natasha looks up at him and her eyes are pitying for a moment, and she looks conflicted, like she wants to talk but doesn’t know what to say. Steve’s hand tightens on the doorknob behind him.

“It’s… messy. He’s confused about a lot of things,” Natasha hedges.

“What did he say?” Steve insists.

“Captain America is a symbol of Western ideology,” she reminds him. “Bucky works for Hydra. He’s been told Captain America is his enemy.” Her voice shifts down a gear, deep and soft. “He believes it.”

Steve has to force his grip to relax. “He hates me,” he states.

“He hates Captain America. He doesn’t seem to realise that’s you,” Natasha says. “As far as I can tell, he’s got three versions of you in his head, and he doesn’t realise they’re all the same person. There’s Captain America, his enemy; there’s the alpha who’s claimed him; and there’s Steve Rogers, his friend, who he seems to have no memory of. I’m sorry.” Natasha pauses for a moment in condolence. “This is why I said he needs help. You’re wearing the damn uniform right now and he still hasn’t put it together. Whatever they did to him didn’t just cross his wires, it cut them. He needs a professional, and preferably someone with a spirit-read.”

“And then he’ll talk?” Fury asks.

“He might remember more of who he used to be,” Natasha says.

“How do you know he’s not playing you?” Fury asks.

Natasha glances at Steve, implying that it’s his job to know whether Bucky is telling the truth or not.  “It’s not impossible,” she says. “But I’m hard to play.”

Steve has nothing to say, he just wants to get back in the room with Bucky. He’s in favour of the psychiatrist, of getting the old Bucky back, but he doesn’t like the idea of trusting a stranger when Bucky is at his most vulnerable. Steve’s job here is to protect Bucky, regardless of how Bucky feels about him. Steve left him for dead after all, in Hydra’s hands.

Steve returns to the interrogation room, leaving Fury, Natasha and Tony to talk.

“You alright, Buck?” he asks quietly, reflexively. Bucky, with his long messy hair, dressed in grey loungewear that looks like it could have come straight from the helicarrier gift shop if it had one, turns to look at him. He’s been talking to Natasha, but he hasn’t spoken to Steve yet, not really. He’s barely reacted to Steve. Steve wets his lips and tries something that makes him feel dirty and small. “Comrade?” he whispers.

Bucky snorts and looks away. So that’s that. Steve sighs and walks over to him, putting his hand on his shoulder and using the feel of Bucky’s aura to comfort himself. Bucky doesn’t move, as if he doesn’t even know Steve is there, but his aura notices. It makes a hole, pulling him in.

The door opens and the others come back. Bucky doesn’t seem to react, but Steve stands up straighter, broadening his shoulders. He looks between their faces, trying to get a read on what’s going to happen next. Natasha looks at the ground, and Steve knows it’s not going to be good.

“We can help him,” Fury begins. “But we can’t let him go. We need him to talk. He is still dangerous.”

Steve’s hand tightens on Bucky’s shoulder at the word ‘talk’, and Bucky’s aura begins to draw in on itself, hardening in preparation.

“Just say it, Fury,” Steve says. His hand misses his shield.

“We need to keep him contained. We’ll get him the help that he needs, but he will be in a cell from now on.” They are all looking at Steve, waiting to see his reaction.

“I don’t leave his side,” Steve says. “I will be in that cell with him.”

There is hesitation in the others. Fury does not agree immediately. It is a better response than they expected, but Fury does not want his best weapon locked up in holding. There are other Avengers who are stronger than Steve, but Steve is reliable and level-headed, and without him the team becomes unpredictable and ungovernable. Natasha is looking at him with caution, because she knows that to Steve – the way he is now – a cell is just a room. He will not give up control of Bucky’s fate, and so his offer to place himself at SHIELD’s mercy is hollow. Tony is looking at him as if he is stupid, and is growing suspicious because he knows Steve is not stupid, but the Alpha part of him is clouding his thinking because it would do the same thing.

“Fine,” Fury agrees after a moment, because he’d rather have Steve locked up and happy than free and angry. “Let’s go then.”

Bucky is confused and worried, Steve can feel it, but he keeps his hand on Bucky’s arm as he leads him out of the interrogation room and into the cell they will share, and he keeps his aura pressing down on Bucky so that those feelings can’t be made into action until the door locks behind them, then Steve lets go.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Bucky twists out of his hold, staring at the locked door and the double-sided mirror with a snarl on his face, trying to see a way out. He feels betrayed, Steve can feel it coming off him. Bucky’s angry, but he has nothing to vent his anger on except for his own Alpha. He won’t do that, so he stalks to the other side of the cell and stands by the bunk, his back to Steve and his arms folded.

Steve lets his back fall against the door and slides down until he is sitting on the floor. He figures he might as well get comfortable. He won’t insult Bucky by apologising. He was there for the same conversation Steve was, he knows what happened and why Steve allowed it.

Steve looks at Bucky, at the T-shirt straining across his back, the way the sweatpants hang off his ass, and closes his eyes. It will always be true that where Bucky goes, Steve goes, but this could be a trying situation. They are locked in a small space together, with the illusion of privacy, and the claim is still unfinished.

Bucky’s grey Omega aura calls to him like gravity – Steve is a boulder trying not to roll downhill. It’s not as bad as it could be, because Steve has already claimed him. A blanket of red twines around Bucky and holds him together. This would be much harder if there was still that painful white crack down the middle of him, begging for rest. Steve would never have been able to resist marking him if he was in pain.

Instead, all Steve has to fight is a voice insisting that Bucky is _his_ , but also not his, not yet, not completely, and wouldn’t it feel so good to make it complete? Both the act itself, and afterwards, holding him in his arms, with nothing able to come between them, and nothing left to do but heal him? Then he would be safe. Then he wouldn’t hurt anymore.

The cameras he knows are there keep Steve still and quiet, but it’s the thought that if he did what his instincts are telling him to do, Bucky wouldn’t be Bucky anymore that keeps him from regretting his inaction. The man in front of him is barely anything. Just hurt, lashing out like a wild animal. He is angry, and sad, and scared, and confused. He is hollow, and all he has to say are words other people gave him. It would be too easy for Steve to fill that hollow until there is no room for what little is left of Bucky.

But he has Steve now. He is Steve’s mate now. And Steve won’t be like Hydra or SHIELD. Steve will build him back up, not break him down or poke at the pieces. Steve is the only person who can get _Bucky_ back. He’s probably the only person left who ever knew Bucky, before the war, before everything.

Bucky strides over to the two-way mirror and punches it, his metal hand hitting it like a battering ram. It wobbles but it doesn’t break. Bucky draws his arm back again, slamming his fist into it.

“Shh, shh,” Steve objects, half reaching out as if to grab Bucky and stop him, but unable to reach more than the cuff of the sweatpants. He isn’t really trying. If Bucky wants to get out badly enough, Steve won’t stop him, he’ll help.

Bucky whirls on him, spitting Russian at him, angry, then starts pacing back and forth to the back of the room.

“I did it for you,” Steve mutters, letting his head rest against the door. He doesn’t really know what he is talking about: the fact that they are in this cell, the marking, the war, the serum…

Bucky does not say anything else. He paces for the next thirty minutes or so, maybe more. Being locked up seems to trigger a nervous energy in him that won’t allow him to stop moving. It occurs to Steve that maybe he is claustrophobic. Eventually, however, he sits down against the back wall, wedged between the bed and the sink, and watches the door. From then on, he is as still as a statue. Conserving his energy, Steve decides. Preparing for battle.

There is a knock on the door, a quiet rap against the slot for meals. Steve leaps to his feet nonetheless, and Bucky follows him up warily.

“It’s me,” speaks Natasha from the other side of the door. The slot slides across, and a couple of books poke through. “Can’t get you out yet, but I thought you might like these.”

Steve takes the books. _Russian for Beginners_. “Thanks,” he says. He does appreciate it.

“No problem. Good luck.” And with that the slot slides back into place and she’s gone.

Steve flips through the first book _._ He is surprised when it is just a book, no file or garrotte or passcode enclosed. He smiles, and moves this time to sit on the bed, forgiving himself enough to take that modicum of comfort. Bucky is wary of him, moving away, but Steve can see he is curious about the books. He turns to the first page, flicking through to find something he can use right away.

“Menya zovut Steve,” he picks out, glancing at Bucky for a reaction. _My name is Steve._ He thinks he is probably pronouncing it wrong and sounds like an idiot, an American tourist at best. He says it again, trying to do what he imagines is a Russian accent. Further down the page he reads “Kak vas zovut?” _What is your name?_

He waits. Bucky is staring at him. He sneers and says something in Russian Steve doesn’t understand. Steve sighs. He hadn’t expected it to work immediately, but he had hoped. He had hoped Bucky would want to talk to him, that his Omega wouldn’t be openly hostile to him. He repeats the words quietly to himself. He can’t see the problem.

He looks through the rest of the book, but phrases like ‘Katarina has a big dog’ or ‘Where is the train station?’ aren’t of much use to him. He does read out “Ya Amerikanets,” _I am an American_ , on the off-chance, but it yields no results. Nor does asking Bucky where he is from, how old he is, where he lives, or anything else in the Daily Life chapter.

He doesn’t give up. He just goes back to the beginning and stares intently at the first page, his lips moving as he learns how to say hello and conjugate the verb ‘To Be’. It looks like he is actually going to have to learn Russian.

“Menya zovut Iakov.”

Steve looks up. Bucky just spoke. “Huh?”

“Menya zovut Iakov,” he says again, managing to look both frustrated and embarrassed.

“Iakov?” Steve repeats, making sure he’s got it right.

Bucky nods once.

“Iakov.” Steve says in confirmation. Bucky thinks his name is Iakov. It’s a start. It’s something personal. Steve will treasure the name, because Bucky gave it to him, but he still awaits the day they can both throw it away because Bucky remembers who he is, and who Steve is. Steve wants to ask if he remembers Brooklyn.

Steve looks back in the book, but the moment passes. If it was an opening for a conversation, he doesn’t fill it fast enough. But it’s something, a first step. It’s an improvement on how Bucky was the day before, going into trances and trying to pull his own arm off. Whoever ‘Iakov’ is, he is at least taking shape as a person. It’s not Bucky, but it’s someone.

Steve loves Bucky, not Iakov. He feels uncomfortable being mated to Iakov. It hits him for the first time that he is mated to a Hydra agent. He knew he was the Winter Soldier, Hydra assassin, but he was always Bucky first, to Steve. Anything that happened while they were apart didn’t matter. Now it is becoming increasingly clear that Bucky is buried under everything else, and Steve is going to have to get to know Iakov before he can get Bucky back.

More time passes, and Bucky sits by the toilet on the other side of the room from Steve, staring at the door. Steve reads the book on the bed, but he is reaching his limit on what he can remember from one sitting.

They are fed. Steve tries to offer Bucky food from his tray, but Bucky is not eating. Finally Steve puts their trays together on the floor in front of Bucky and sits down facing him. He eats a little bit of everything on both trays. It’s not bad, and Steve suspects they’re not getting the usual prisoner fare. He leaves the rest, and after about twenty minutes, Bucky begins picking at it.

Steve is not used to being locked up, but he can handle it. He spends the time reliving his life, as he often does. He works backwards. Everything he’s done wrong. Everything he hopes he’s done right. Waking up in the 21st century. Going down in that plane. Losing Bucky. The Howlin’ Commandos. Peggy. The super serum. Trying to be a soldier as an Omega. Brooklyn. Bucky. Everything before the war is Bucky.

In the corner, in the present, Bucky grumbles a noise like a growl. Steve looks at him, and sees Bucky is staring at him, frowning. Steve feels confusion, and maybe jealousy coming from him. Of course. Bucky can probably feel Steve’s emotions as well through their bond. Steve can only guess at the kaleidoscope of love, sadness, regret, and joy he’s been broadcasting, and Bucky wouldn’t be able to place any of it. He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t know so much of it is for him. There was a time when Bucky would have been able to place every emotion to the correct memory, they were so tied up in each other, but this Bucky, this Iakov, knows nothing about him.

Steve gives him a small, sad smile. “Sorry,” he says. “Just reminiscing.”

It occurs to Steve that with nothing but time on their hands, he could repeat their story to Bucky, remind him. He could do it from start to finish, all ninety-odd years of it. Maybe it would make sense to him today. Or maybe it would alienate him, push him further away. Steve couldn’t accept that Iakov was it now, here to stay, and Bucky was gone. No. No way. But he remembers how that dark grey aura swirled and tightened its hold when they had tried to remind him of his name before.

“I had a friend,” Steve begins, taking a different tack. “He was like my brother. We grew up together.” He is being careful, picking his words slowly. Usually he is almost unable to talk about Bucky, but this time, with him returned to Steve, the story flows easily.

“I was an Omega then, so you have to imagine me… smaller,” Steve laughs for a second, before he smothers it, not wanting Bucky to think he is laughing at him. He’s an Omega now, after all. He misses Brooklyn, thinking for the first time that things were simpler before the war. “My friend was a Beta, and he was always looking out for me. I used to get sick a lot. Alphas were always… well. Hanging around, I guess. Bucky- I mean, my friend, used to chase them off for me, or help me escape.”

Steve tries to see if his slip has gone unnoticed, but Bucky doesn’t say anything or stop him. He is frowning, but he may just be confused as to why he is hearing this story.

“You remind me of him.” It’s a lie, and Steve hates to tell it, but he can’t help but try to tie Iakov and Bucky together in a way Iakov will accept, somehow get them connected in his mind. His charcoal aura is deepening. If any of this is ringing bells for Bucky, he isn’t being allowed to remember it.

“We were always together. He was the coolest, kindest person I’ve ever known.” Steve is lost in sadness for a moment. Maybe that man didn’t die like Steve thought he did, but he was still captured, tortured, erased, and bloodied. Bucky, now, just watches him.

“Anyway, then the war came. World War II,” he clarifies, in case Bucky can’t place which war he means. “I wanted to fight but they don’t take Omegas. They took Bucky, my friend. I got in the war the only way I knew how. They offered me an experimental serum, that was going to make me an Alpha.” Steve pauses. It’s obvious how the experiment turned out, for better or worse. “Bucky died. He fell off a train, behind enemy lines.”

Bucky’s aura sparked, but outwardly nothing changed in his frown. Steve just had to console himself that this story would be in there, maybe giving Bucky a ladder out of where he was buried to the surface. Maybe if Bucky was still in there, trapped, he would like to hear that Steve had never forgotten him, had missed him terribly, every day.

“I crashed a plane into the arctic and was frozen in ice. I woke up here, in the 21st century. Guess we both survived,” he said, watching Bucky carefully. Bucky scowls at him, saying nothing. After a moment, he looks away, and rubs his temple like his head hurts. It’s enough of a sign for Steve.  

There is a loud shunt of metal as the cell door unlocks, sending both men shooting to their feet. Steve holds his hand out to keep Bucky back and moves in front of him, ready to face whoever it was.

A smartly-dressed woman Steve doesn’t know walks into the room with an A4 notebook under her arm and a collapsible chair in her other hand. She’s an Alpha, and Steve’s aura flares out of his body to fill the room in an immediate, intimidating display. It slams down like an impenetrable red wall that makes it exceptionally clear that Bucky is under Steve’s protection, and she is not welcome. She doesn’t respond to his attack, but she holds firm, and Steve doesn’t like that.

Natasha follows behind.

“This is Dr. Wen,” she says. “She’ll be Bucky’s psychiatrist.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

Steve and Bucky are sitting on the bed side by side. Steve makes sure their thighs are pressed together, their arms touching, so little space between them it would be more comfortable for Steve to put his arm over Bucky’s shoulder to get it out of the way, but he does not do that, though he would like to. He wants to be present for this, and while he knows Bucky needs space to be free to talk, Steve needs to show who he belongs to.

They are facing Dr. Wen, who is sitting on her unfolded stool on the other side of the cell. Her back is straight and she is trying to look relaxed, and Steve is trying to keep his spirit under control. He is not generous enough to stop his display entirely; his aura is still bigger than he is, wisping and licking like a fire. It reassures him to know that she can see it, that she knows who he is, what he is. The strongest Alpha in the world, the pride of the American military.

Bucky is sitting still, but his spirit is moving. The shadow of it strokes the flames of Steve’s red aura into itself, twining wanting, needy tendrils of positive and negative energy together. With his Alpha taking up the room, his submissive instincts are making him outwardly calm and quiet, but their unfinished claim means that Steve’s display is like a buffet to Bucky’s spirit. Steve’s aura is telling him that he is protected, and the Omega energy doesn’t care that they are not alone.

The tickling flicker and drag of Bucky’s spirit demanding Steve satisfy it has Steve fighting down an erection. It is difficult to remember that mounting Bucky in front of Wen would be bad. He keeps his focus on the other Alpha, maintaining a battle-ready vigilance, the prospect of a fight the only thing distracting him from pouring himself into Bucky until Steve is finally exhausted and Bucky is finally whole again.

Dr Wen is deliberately refusing to be cowed by Steve’s aura, holding her spirit at a normal level, neither aggressive nor surrendering. Steve assumes this is the psychiatrist’s protocol when faced with an aggressive Alpha, never to show fear and to maintain control. Intellectually, he knows that, but his instinct wants to dominate, destroy, or chase away this other Alpha, sitting so close to his Omega while their claim is still unfinished, seeing Bucky’s face without his mask, dressed in nothing but sweatpants and a t-shirt, sitting on the bed he is meant to share with Steve.

“So,” Dr Wen says, her voice mellow, announcing the start of their session. “It is my understanding that Bucky doesn’t speak English?”

Steve does not tell her that Bucky understands English just fine, that he thinks he can speak it too, but is refusing to out of stubborn protest of his incarceration. Steve’s Alpha spirit is pleased to think that he knows more about Bucky than this stranger.

Neither of the men respond to her question, so she continues. “I will proceed in Russian then.”

Steve frowns as she does just that. He is now cut out of the conversation. This Alpha is talking to his Omega, could be saying anything, and Bucky could say anything back, and Steve wouldn’t know it. A violent jealousy seizes him. He wants to push Bucky down and sink his teeth into the back of his neck, just to show this woman that he can, that Bucky will let him do that, that Bucky is his in ways this woman can’t even begin to understand.

His aura burns hotter, brighter, growing denser, but he does not send it out to Dr Wen. He lets it drag over Bucky’s calming grey aura, reminding him that he is there, that Bucky belongs to him, and letting himself be comforted by Bucky’s proximity. He still has him. And if he stokes that charcoal Omega spirit up into a higher frenzy, it is just to show this woman that he can.

Dr Wen has been speaking, but Bucky has not replied. He is looking off to one side in bored disdain. Steve does not touch him nor encourage him to talk. He knows it would be for the best, that this is meant to help him, that it is meant to help him recover his memories, but no one told Steve the psychiatrist would be an Alpha. It is churlish, but Steve simply cannot allow it. The Bucky he has now is enough for Steve if this is the alternative.

As Dr Wen continues to speak, carefully droning in Russian, Bucky presses his leg hard against Steve’s, almost rocking it. It is a subtle move without finesse, without practice, intended to be unseen. Steve doesn’t immediately know what he means by it, how he is supposed to react. He presses back and Bucky does nothing else.

Until he makes some small noise of frustration and puts his hand on Steve’s leg, surprisingly heavy just above Steve’s knee. Steve’s control slips on his spirit which lights up with the intensity of a flare. It is only that his muscles are so tense that his bones are locked in position that he does not move. He cannot unfold his arms, he cannot unlock his jaw, he cannot get to his feet. While Wen is there, he will not take his eyes of her and the threat she represents to the beloved Omega he feels against his side.

Dr Wen gives a small sigh and meets Steve’s glare. “And what about you, Mr Rogers? Commander Fury informed me that you claimed the patient almost as soon as he arrived. That you insist you knew each other between the World Wars, before you were both lost. That you grew up together as best friends. How do you think your marking him has affected his mental state? By all accounts, he is in a very fragile state of mind. The demands you’ve made on his spirit could have permanently impeded his recovery.

“Perhaps if you allow your mark to lapse, I can see what we are really dealing with here, and give Mr Barnes the help he needs to finally heal.”

Steve stares at her, a sick taste rising in the back of his throat. His vision turns red, or black, and his aura swings out of him like a wrecking ball.

Later, when Dr Wen has been carried out of the cell, Natasha asks him “Was that really necessary?”

Steve is lying on the bed now. It took a little out of him, using the amount of aura required to immediately stun another Alpha into unconsciousness. His head is spinning a little, though that might be residual rage, guilt, and uncertainty rather than fatigue.

“It felt necessary at the time,” Steve tells her. He hadn’t meant to do it, not exactly. He had wanted to for a split-second and that was all it took. It had felt right, like there were laws in the universe that were older and more just than the ones humans put on paper. The law of might and right, of possession and defending what was yours, returning insults given to you so that they may never be given again. Survival of the fittest.

It was the Alpha serum and what it had done to him. It was what they had always been afraid of. It was why the doctors had chosen an Omega to give the serum to, and why Steve had always been afraid of Alphas growing up. In that moment, he had known he was stronger, so he did what he wanted. He had started the fight.

Steve closes his eyes, disappointed in and scared of himself.

Bucky sits on the floor by the bed, apparently ignoring everything going on around him. His soft grey aura periodically tugs on the bond between them, probing at Steve’s feelings, checking on his Alpha. Steve sends reassuring feelings back, but he knows Bucky will be able to tell they’re not genuine.

“You don’t understand, Nat. I didn’t understand what it’s like, until I saw him. I’d do anything for him.” He opens his eyes and looks at her, imploring. He wants help, and he wants to be understood. Bucky is his, and he doesn’t want to be tested, because he no longer knows what he will do. But he doesn’t want Natasha to think he’s a monster.

“We can try again,” she replies after a moment.

Steve nods. “No more Alphas. It can’t be an Alpha,” he tells her.

“It won’t be. We’ll find someone else,” she says. “I’m not giving up,” Natasha promises as she slips quietly out of the room, leaving Steve alone with Bucky.  

Steve nods again and looks away, closing his eyes. He still knows Bucky needs help, but now he has to admit to himself that he is also afraid. He wants his best friend back, he wants him to be well, and happy, and free of Hydra, but if they get the old Bucky back, what will he think of finding himself marked by Steve? This man he has now, the Omega sitting by his bed, who hates Captain America, the United States and everything they stand for, and only speaks Russian, that man is his mate. Seems to want to be his mate, seems to want to be claimed.

That makes Steve feel worse, hate himself more, for wondering if it wouldn’t be better if the old, real Bucky never comes back, even as that thought makes him want to cry. He wants, he _needs_ the old Bucky back; his buddy, his best friend, his biggest, most tragic, most choking regret. But imagining the look on his face when Steve touches him is enough to make Steve want to go back to the ice. Confusion, disgust, betrayal… Or maybe he’d laugh it off, a little chuckle that dislodges Steve’s hand from his shoulder as he takes a subtle step back, uncomfortable but hiding it. It would be a nice joke, how ‘bout a cup a’ joe in that diner with the cute waitress, huh? She always gave Steve a little extra cream in his cup.

That would break his heart. It makes him sick, to imagine that smooth, irresistible, handsome Brooklyn charm, that million-dollar smile with barely two nickels behind it, used against him that way.

But hadn’t he seen it before?

Hadn’t he?

Steve frowns, looking at the ceiling, chasing a memory in his mind that’s circling the open drain of ninety years’ distance.

“ _C’mon, kid_ ,” Bucky said to him, mouth crooking up on one side, gaze dropping to the floor, one small step back towards the door pulling his shoulder out from under Steve’s hand. ‘ _C’mon, kid’_ what? What came next? Was that a real memory? Did that really happen, back when Bucky was taller than him and smelled of pomade and always got his split shoes shined outside the barbershop because he knew the kid’s dad had ran out on his mom and they needed the money even when Bucky didn’t really have it? What was his mind trying to tell him?

Steve looks over at Bucky as he is now. Still here, with him, but now his hair is long and unkempt, and he is hunched in clothes that aren’t his, in a cell, with a metal arm. Doesn’t matter. The memory can be real or not. This is real. Steve lifts his hand and catches a lock of Bucky’s hair between his finger and thumb, rubbing it so he can feel the texture. This is real.

The next psychiatrist comes hours later, after they have had dinner so Steve assumes it is evening though it’s impossible to tell. This time, Steve is determined to do better. The man let into the cell is an Omega, and Steve lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. The man looks kind, with short brown hair and glasses, and a dark wool sweater with the collar of a dress shirt showing at his neck. He is pale with an unassuming, shy smile.

He introduces himself as Mitchell and holds his hand out to Steve to be shook. Bucky attacks him, knocking him to the ground with a punch like the bolt from a cattle gun, then goes in for the kill. He is already bleeding a small, spreading puddle as Steve drags Bucky off him, and the guards rush in to pull the unconscious man out.

Bucky is prickly with jealous, defensive energy in Steve’s hold, his back to Steve’s chest as Steve grips his arms. He yanks himself free then turns, shoving Steve against the wall with a single push from his metal hand. With the metal arm across Steve’s throat and his blue eyes burning from under his black hair, Bucky cups a handful between Steve’s thighs and grips just tightly enough to let him know he is serious. He says something in Russian Steve doesn’t understand, then finishes off with “Da? _Da?_ ”

Steve learned that morning that ‘Da’ means yes, so he quickly agrees “Da! Da!” nodding.

Bucky accepts that with a stern nod, releasing Steve’s cock which is now more than half hard and stepping away. Steve has no idea what he has just agreed to, but he has a good guess that it involves ownership of his dick, and he is happy to go along with whatever Bucky wants in that department. It is difficult enough now not to reach for the Omega’s hand and show him how to get into the Captain America uniform.

Bucky touching him made him forget about Mitchell but as his eyes fall on the closed cell door, he spares a passing thought to be sorry for the man. He didn’t really know what he was getting into, but Steve is too pleased with Bucky’s jealous display to hold it against him. SHIELD will see to it that the man gets the best medical care.

A minute later Fury is storming into the cell. Steve drops the sappy half-smile, and moves between Fury and Bucky.

“You agreed to the psychiatrists,” he says, enraged.

“I can’t have another Alpha in here, close to him. I can’t,” Steve answers him, keeping his message firm and clear.

“And the Omega?”

“Guess Bucky saw him as competition.”

Fury doesn’t sigh, but he gets that sneer, almost a facial tic. “Rogers…” he warns.

“So it can’t be an Alpha or an Omega,” Steve sums up. “Get someone else.”

“Someone else? Who can read spirits, but not an Alpha or Omega, who speaks fluent Russian, who is in the top of their field with a squeaky clean background check, no money problems or connections that could be exploited by our enemies, who can be trusted with what they might hear? You see my problem?”

“They don’t have to have to be spirited,” Steve objects.

Fury’s eye flicks to Bucky and back again. “However they turned him into an Omega, it was clearly a part of whatever they’ve done to his mind. We need someone who can work with both angles.”

“So it doesn’t have to be today, or tomorrow. We can find the right person,” Steve argues.

“We do not have the mandate to keep the world’s most wanted Hydra assassin as a _guest_ , Rogers!” Fury shouts, losing his temper.

There is a ringing silence.

“He’s mine, Fury, you know what that means,” Steve reminds him, his voice chilly.

“No, Steve. He’s not yours. You’re not mated. Not yet. Stark says you’ve only marked him, you haven’t finished the job. He has no legal protection,” Fury counters.

Now it’s Steve’s turn to go quiet. “It wasn’t him. They did things to him. Hydra _made_ him do those things. Bucky would never- He’s innocent,” he says.

“He needs to talk to us,” Fury insists.

“He- I can’t-” Steve glances behind him at Bucky, who is watching him as blankly as ever. “He’s not ready. I don’t know what you want me to do.”

Fury raises an eyebrow. “You have options here, Rogers. Figure it out. Soon.” He says, before turning to leave the cell.

When the door is open, Bucky makes a break for it. He barrels past Steve, knocks Fury down into the open doorway, and escapes into the corridor. Steve has a slow-motion moment to watch in horror, before he registers that Fury is getting up, and he bolts after Bucky.


	7. Chapter 7

The guards are firing on them, but Steve’s suit is bulletproof. It still hurts like being hit with a baseball, but it makes him glad that he is between them and Bucky, who efficiently and ruthlessly takes out opponents in front of them by blocking their shots with his metal arm until he is close enough to take them down.

Steve doesn’t know whether he is trying to catch Bucky or just trying to keep up. Bucky is trying to escape SHIELD, he assumes, but after this, and the conversation he just had with Fury, Steve doesn’t know whether it would really be best for him to stay. Steve can’t argue that he has Bucky under control anymore. Fury would want to restrain him, possibly torture him to get the information he wants. If Bucky escapes though, he will never be safe.

And a little part of Steve is hurt by the thought that Bucky is trying to escape _him_.

Alarms start going off, and Bucky reaches a bank of elevators. He pauses, unsure where to go, and Steve catches up. He takes his arm - his bare, living arm – and says. “Wait, think about this. I know you want to go, but I can help you. I know you don’t trust Fury, but I’m on your side.”

Bucky looks at him, then points at the keypad for the elevators. It’s a test of Steve’s loyalty. It is not a rejection.

“Are you going back to Hydra?” Steve asks. He can hear shouts, bootsteps in the corridors around them. He knows upstairs the Avengers are scrambling. They have no time.

Bucky stares at him for a moment longer, not giving him an answer, and Steve makes a decision.

“Better take the stairs,” Steve tells him, pulling him into the emergency escape.

They face a battalion on the stairs. In the close quarters, the soldiers don’t stand a chance as Steve and Bucky make short work of them. Bucky is violent and Steve saves a life or two as they work their way up, but half the job is done for them because the guards are packed in so tightly they can barely move, let alone get a clear shot. They can’t retreat, so they’re sitting ducks.

Steve and Bucky keep going past the ground floor. Steve gets them up to the ninth floor and tells Bucky to follow him. It is quiet up here, except for the alarms. No people. No one was expecting them to come out here, which was Steve’s plan. They sneak over to a window, and Steve gestures to a building across the road, with three lanes of traffic speeding between them and it.

“You can make it, right?” he says breathlessly.

Bucky nods, and almost gives him the ghost of a half-smile. Steve smiles back.

“I’ll go first to break the glass. Wait ‘til I’m on the other side to jump. If you’re not going to make it, I’ll catch you,” he says. Then he takes several big steps back to get a run up, really wishes he had his shield, then charges the window.

Breaking the glass sucks. The ground drops away and the traffic continues below him, until the roof of the other building is rushing up to meet him. He rolls to absorb the shock from the landing then spins, going back to the ledge to give Bucky the okay.

Bucky disappears from sight for a second, long enough for Steve’s heart to rocket to his throat as he mentally calculates how strong Bucky is and what the likelihood is of him making the jump, and how few seconds they have until Iron Man comes jetting out after them. Then Bucky is leaping from the ninth floor and Steve’s eyes follow him, estimating his trajectory so Steve can jump in time to break his fall if he’s not going to make it.

It’s close, but Bucky hits the roof, rolling, and Steve is already running to lead him down the fire escape on the other side. Their time is up, they need to get out of sight and get gone. This building shares an alley with a commercial laundry, and Steve breaks the lock on the door to get them inside. He quickly strips off the Captain America uniform and shoves it to the bottom of a large white laundry bin on wheels, throwing clothes to Bucky.

It’s hard to find enough clothes for both of them that are big enough, but Steve doesn’t waste time. He switches Bucky’s SHIELD-branded clothes for a plain t-shirt, a dark hoody, and black sweatpants. For himself he takes jeans and t-shirt that’s too tight across his chest. Bucky doesn’t have any shoes, but the jeans disguise Steve’s boots. It takes them two minutes to change, and he can already hear commotion from outside, Tony’s heel thrusters, a SHIELD chopper, more jackboots and knocks. Steve wipes his face, grabs Bucky’s hand and leads him back out into the alley.

They run to the main thoroughfare. Steve steals a pair of flip-flops and two baseball caps off a street vendor, apologising profusely and promising to pay him back. He tucks Bucky’s hair under the hat and then puts the hood over it. He gets the sandals on him, and they duck into the subway. They vault the barriers, and at the edge of the platform they jump down and head into the tunnels.

Steve navigates them through the tunnels to another stop, where they climb onto the platform to catch the subway. They ride to its furthest point, the edge of the city, then get off and hotwire a car. This is really more stealing than Steve is comfortable with, but he is cataloguing it all in his head so he can make amends later. Once they’ve got the car, they drive into a bad neighbourhood with lots of abandoned buildings, and hole up for the night after pulling some boards off a door.

Bucky doesn’t ask Steve why he had an escape plan, and Steve doesn’t volunteer an answer. He doesn’t really know himself. Maybe because he was in the military. Maybe he was just bored one day. Maybe he didn’t trust SHIELD as much as he pretended.

It is the first chance they have to catch their breath. The place is dirty and cold, and they have no food, no money, no bed, and no friends. Bucky goes to stand by the window’s edge, his back against the wall, looking at the street like he’s standing guard. Once again, even in this situation, it occurs to Steve that he is alone with his Omega. The man he has just given up everything for.

He does not believe he has done anything wrong. As long as he keeps Bucky from hurting anyone, from going back to Hydra, Steve can still call himself a good guy. He hurt some guards, he knows that, but Bucky was going to run either way. Better that he have Steve with him to keep an eye on him, than he escape alone.

He thinks of his apartment back in the complex. He thinks of his fellow Avengers. He was starting to chafe under SHIELD’s heavy-handed control, but when you have a problem like that, you don’t run away. You have to stand up to bullies. What would happen to Sam because of what he’s done?

He has no idea what to do next.

He kicks aside a needle and sits down on a crate, pulling off his cap and running his hands through his hair, holding in a sigh. His mission now is still the same as it was a few hours ago - protect Bucky, help him heal, get him talking. Before he can say anything though, or make a plan, Bucky turns and speaks to him.

“Well done,” he says, his voice rough and heavily accented in Russian.

“Thanks,” Steve returns, staring at him. Has something changed between them now? Does this means Bucky trusts him? Steve isn’t sure he should be being congratulated for what he has just done. “I knew you could speak English,” he adds.

“Of course,” he replies.

“Why wouldn’t you talk to me before?”

“You were SHIELD,” Bucky curses, looking like he wants to spit.

“And now?” Steve asks, since he’s not sure himself.

Bucky shrugs, but when his eyes find Steve’s there is a hot anticipation there. “You are an Alpha. You want me more than you want them. You listen to your spirit.”

Steve swallows and wonders where this is going, whether Bucky is going to climb into his lap at the end of this speech.

But Bucky looks away, staring back out at the street. “I own you,” he says.

Steve can’t argue, but he doesn’t like it. Bucky sounds like a Hydra agent. He thought he wanted Bucky to talk to him, but he doesn’t want to hear Iakov’s words coming out of his mouth.

“So what now?” Steve asks him.

“I have my mission. I can’t go back until it is done.”

 “Didn’t Hydra hurt you?” he tries slowly.

“Hydra made me,” Bucky says. “Hydra gave me my revenge.” The words sound like they are defending Hydra, but the tone is sad and unsure and angry.

“Revenge?” Steve prompts cautiously.

“Yes…” Bucky muses. “SHIELD _took_ from me.” He grinds the words out like he is exorcising a tumour.

Steve watches Bucky watch the street, his expression bitter, his aura like a swirling storm cloud full of thunder and lightning.

“I told you my story,” Steve says.

Bucky makes a noise half-way between a laugh and a scoff, a noise of acknowledgement that promises nothing. Steve waits through the following silence, until Bucky speaks. “I was born in Stalingrad, between the wars. Like you, I had a friend. He was Omega. I was Beta, then. He was small but… he had courage. We were always together.”

Steve listens. Bucky’s voice is rich with reminiscing, twisting sharply with the foreign accent, not rolling with that Brooklyn twang as it should. He sounds sad, his grief is sweet like fruit left on the vine to rot. It is clear that he misses his friend, and that this emotion is genuine, perhaps the realest feeling Steve has seen from him.

Steve is not stupid however. This is his story with Bucky. He needs to listen, because it sounds like this could reveal something huge about what Hydra did to him.

“The war came, as wars always will. I could fight, but Stanis could not. I said I would _protect-_ ” Bucky chokes off, and takes a moment before he can continue. “I was in the Siege. I held the city as a sniper. I protected Stanis. I got food for our families, and always made sure that he ate, even when there was not even rats left in the city. But Stanis wanted to fight. He was proud. Somehow, SHIELD talked to him. They were our allies then, in theory. They got him out of the city before I knew. They promised him they could make him an Alpha, then he could fight. They told him he could end the war, save Stalingrad. Defeat the Nazis.

“It did not work. He was an experiment to them. It killed him. SHIELD killed him, they took him from me!” Bucky is shaking now with the sick anger of the memory. He turns to Steve. “He was before you. You were the success.” The expression on his face was not forgiving, his eyes moved over Steve as if he was looking for the reason he survived, the thing that made him _deserve_ to survive.

“After that… I had nothing left. I hated SHIELD. I hated America and their hollow promises, and the way they walked over the Russian people. Hydra offered me a way to make them pay. The same experiment, almost. They would make me an Omega, the best soldier, the most loyal, the most obedient, the most selfless. I would serve only the highest Alpha, Stalin. I said yes. I wanted to know what had been done to my Stanis, feel what he felt.

“I told him I would always be there, until the last stop. I had to do it.”

Bucky’s aura is almost black, dark even in the night of the room around them, his eyes colourless shadows.

Steve doesn’t know where to begin. Bucky told that story like it was true. To him, it was. But how? How had Hydra got him to believe it? How had Bucky not noticed the similarities between their stories? How did Steve begin to unpick this false narrative to get to the truth beneath it?

“Sounds like we’ve got a lot in common,” Steve says carefully. “We’ve both lost someone.”

Bucky hums his agreement, looking back out into the street.

“Do I remind you of him?” Steve presses.

“No,” Bucky replies. “Stanis is dead.”

“No? Sounds a lot like me, in the ‘40s. An Omega, trying to join the big fight. Signing up with SHIELD, getting the serum. Best friends with a Beta.”

Bucky levels an angry stare at Steve. “Stanis is dead. SHIELD killed him.”

“If you could have him back, wouldn’t you want to?”

“Of course I would, but he is dead! Everything I do is for him, for justice for his memory! To make SHIELD remember and pay for their crimes. I could stop if he were alive, but he is dead. I can never stop, not while there is a SHIELD. And even if Stanis had survived, he would be an old man. He would not know me as I am now. There is no Stanis left for me in this world,” Bucky rails.

Steve exhales slowly through his nose. “I know the feeling,” he says. “Do you ever wonder if he’d be happy with what you’re doing? If he’d be proud, or… not?” It’s surreal, talking about this with Bucky. Steve has to pretend Bucky is still gone, that they haven’t found each other, while the man in front of him mourns someone who never existed, not realising his friend is alive and talking to him.

Bucky turns back to the window. “Stanis is dead,” he repeats, implying that Stanis is not capable of approving or disapproving, and not sitting in that room with him.

“Let me make a suggestion you’re not going to like,” Steve begins. “I suggest that that story isn’t entirely true. I think you’re James Buchanan Barnes, my best friend. You were captured by Hydra and they brainwashed you into being their assassin. To make it easier, instead of erasing your memories, they just changed them a bit to make them fit with what they wanted, motivate you to work for them. I think I’m Stanis. I didn’t die in the Alpha serum experiments. You’re an American.”

Bucky shakes his head. “No. Stanis is real. I remember him.” He says this as if it is very important, has to be true. “I am from Stalingrad.”

“How do you know those memories are real?” Steve questions.

“How do you know _your_ memories are real?” Bucky counters.

“Okay. That’s fair.” Steve thinks about it. “Well, it helps that you’re standing here in front of me. You’re real.”

“I am not Bucky,” he insists.

“Maybe not anymore,” Steve is forced to admit. “Maybe not right now. But you were. I’m not wrong.” And he means that about more than just Bucky’s identity. He’s not wrong that this man is Bucky, has Bucky’s face and Bucky’s scars and Bucky’s heart, and because this man is Bucky, Steve is not wrong that they belong to each other in ways that transcend mating claims and history and death. They each had a fate, a destiny, and they each beat it to be here now, alive after more than ninety years on Earth. Steve should have died in the arctic. Bucky should have died when he fell from that train. But they lived and found each other despite everything. He is not wrong to have done what he did, tied their spirits together so nothing can separate them ever again.

“You’re crazy,” Bucky says.

Coming from him, that makes Steve quirk a crooked smile. “Maybe,” he replies. After making himself a fugitive from SHIELD in the company of a Hydra assassin, he can’t really argue otherwise. But he still has hope, because it has not escaped him that Bucky’s aura and mind are improving from how he was when Steve first saw him. There is still pain in him, but he doesn’t feel like his spirit is tearing itself apart anymore. He is talking, in English even. He is thinking, instead of just reacting. He has lost that wild, erratic edge. He is healing, whether he knows it or not, and Steve thinks that sooner or later, the real Bucky is going to beat whatever programming Hydra put him through. As long as Steve stays with him, his aura holding Bucky’s together, feeding it strong, healthy Alpha energy, Steve knows Bucky can beat it.

“Can I ask you a question?” Steve asks. Bucky doesn’t reply so Steve goes ahead. “How do you feel about me claiming you?”

“For now, I have a strong Alpha. It is convenient,” Bucky almost smiles at him, as if he is sharing an inside joke. Steve knows he is referring to their escape from the SHIELD building.

“And for later?”

Bucky glances at him then shrugs, but he looks uncomfortable. “It is for Hydra to decide.”

“It isn’t,” Steve says, affronted.

“I see two paths,” Bucky elaborates, in a tone of voice as if it doesn’t matter to him. “You help me complete my mission. You come with me to Hydra. If they are pleased with you, they make you Hydra agent. Maybe then we make it permanent, if they say yes.” He shifts his weight, folding his arms over his chest and looking at the floor. “I will tell them you helped me to get out of SHIELD,” he says, as if embarrassed by his admission that he would argue in Steve’s favour.

“I’m not doing any of that,” Steve tells him.

Bucky scowls. “Then you choose the other path. You get in my way, you try to stop me, you do not join Hydra. I leave you behind, and I kill you if you follow me.”

“I can stop you,” Steve says. He is referring to the fact that his Alpha spirit is stronger than Bucky’s Omega spirit; that through their bond, Steve can force Bucky unconscious if he tries.

“Will you?” Bucky replies. It is not the first time someone has tried to use Steve’s moral code against him. It rarely works, but unfortunately, it is a weakness.

“I won’t lose you,” Steve swears. “I’ll do what it takes to keep you.”

“Then join Hydra,” Bucky answers.

“I won’t.”

For a drawn-out moment, they just stare at each other. Bucky breaks first, shrugging as if he doesn’t care either way, and looking back out of the window.

“Sleep, Alpha,” he says. “I have first watch.”

Steve looks around, wondering where exactly he is supposed to sleep, not appreciating being dismissed but recognising that they have reached an impasse. Perhaps in the morning, Iakov will have lost some more ground to Bucky and they can continue this conversation.

In the end, Steve just kicks a patch of floor between Bucky and the door clean and lies down. As a super-soldier, he can go without sleep for days, just as he can go without food, but he must drift off at some point because in the morning Bucky kicks him awake and drops a handgun on his stomach.

“Come,” he says. “We go.”

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

Bucky won’t tell Steve where they are going. He does reveal that he got the guns from drug dealers. That was what he was doing at the window all night, watching a corner hustler. When the man went to deliver his takings for the night, Bucky followed, and robbed both the corner man and his handler. So he and Steve also have money now.

Steve tells Bucky that he doesn’t use guns, so Bucky carries both of them. Steve suspects they are not the only two weapons Bucky has now, hidden under his clothes.

Their first stop is for food, a quick unhealthy breakfast at the first place they come to that looks like it won’t report seeing them. Bucky insists that they eat a lot, as he is not going to waste time on food later. After that, they buy more clothes, dull stuff that manages to hang a little large even on them, concealing Steve’s distinctive silhouette and making him look like any other big guy. Bucky gets boots and gloves, sending Steve to the counter with their load while he keeps his metal hand hidden in his pocket.

It takes them less than an hour after leaving the derelict house to find themselves back on the road. Bucky ditches the last car they stole and Steve has to convince him not to torch it to cover their tracks. They steal another one and drive through the city. It is at this point that Bucky explains he is heading to a Hydra safe house where he can organise passage to Bern so he can complete his mission, or receive new directives.

Bucky explains he has to be careful. He says that perhaps Steve helped Bucky escape to gain his trust, and once he has intelligence on Hydra, would go back to SHIELD to report it. Steve doesn’t reply. He doesn’t feel like talking to Bucky right now.

Steve is sickened to see how normal the house looks. He follows Bucky out of the car and up the steps to an unassuming townhouse. Bucky knocks and slips the glove off his metal hand. Steve keeps his head down. If SHIELD is watching them, this is going to look really bad. He vows he won’t let it go further than this. Bucky is not going to Bern, he is not going to complete his mission, and Steve _is_ going to share everything he learns with SHIELD, eventually. But right now, the truth is Bucky can provide shelter for them, and Steve can’t.

A clean-cut young man opens the door. He is not spirited, but he reminds Steve of Mitchell. He has the look of a young professional, well-educated, polite, a good investment. It sends a shiver down Steve’s spine.

“What the fuck?” he says as he spots Bucky’s metal hand, clearly understanding who is in front of him.

“Hail Hydra,” Bucky greets him, shouldering his way past into the building.

Steve follows, and it isn’t until they are both standing in a tidy, respectable sitting room that the young man recognises Steve.

“What the fuck?” he demands, his eyes wide, this time pulling a gun from his waistband and aiming it at Steve, who does not move. The agent’s eyes flick to Bucky, uncertain.

“Lower your weapon,” Bucky growls.

“This is Captain America!” he insists.

“I said lower your weapon,” Bucky orders again, turning to face the agent. Steve recognises he has moved into a relaxed but aggressive stance. His hands are loose at his sides ready to go for a weapon.

“Have you turned?” the agent asks Bucky.

“No, and I’ll kill you if you question my loyalty again. He’s mine,” Bucky explains, gesturing to Steve. “He wants me.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“It means if you don’t take your gun off him I’m going to kill you where you stand,” Bucky tells him.

The agent eyes Bucky, nervously shifting his grip on the gun.

“I’d put the gun down,” Steve says quietly. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Fuck you, you freak,” the agent replies, and Bucky closes the gap instantly, punching the man in the head. He drops, but Steve is there to catch him, laying him on the floor and checking his injury. The man is still alive.

“We need to call an ambulance,” Steve says.

Bucky looks at him as if he’s stupid.

“He could die,” he insists.

“That was the point,” Bucky replies.

“If you wanted to kill him, you would have,” Steve says.

“If he lives, our location is compromised.”

“Bucky…” Steve is ready to appeal to his better nature, the friend he knows is in there that made him pull his punch and spare the man, when there is a knock on the door. They both freeze. Steve goes for the door first to take control of the situation. If it is a Hydra agent, he could be in trouble. If it is anyone else, Bucky will be in trouble, and he knows which one he prefers.

He opens the door, fearing for his centre mass, and finds Sam on the outside step. He is wearing civilian clothes, his hands in the pockets of a dark jacket. Steve can’t see anyone else in the street, but that does not mean they are not there.

“Hey, man,” Sam greets him, and his voice is tight, controlled. Steve hates to hear it like that, like he doesn’t know if he can trust Steve. Like he doesn’t know if Steve is going to attack him.

“Sam, it’s good to see you,” he replies, and it’s true. Maybe he has a friend after all. He wants one.

“I’ve got a message from Fury,” he says brusquely. “We know he’s in there, and we’re ready to roll on both of you. I convinced Fury to give me the chance to talk you out first. I know you always want to stop the fight before it starts. I’m hoping that’s still true.”

“It is,” Steve confirms.

“Then come quietly,” Sam asks him. “A lot of innocent people live in these houses.”

“It’s not that simple,” he says. “Would you like to come in?” He steps back from the door, holding his arm out in welcome as if it is his house.

Sam looks inside. “I’d be trusting you, if I did,” he says.

“I know. I haven’t turned, Sam, I just… I have to be with him and he’s… He’s still…” Steve struggles, knowing Bucky is listening, assuming he hasn’t made a break for it out the back door.

Sam sighs and steps across the threshold. “I don’t really want the Hulk dropped on a residential area either,” he says.

Steve closes the door behind him and leads him through to the sitting room where Bucky is standing right where Steve left him. He frowns at Steve as they come in.

“He’s my friend,” Steve explains. Sam is a Beta, and so not a threat to their claim, but Bucky still glares at the man as if trying to crush him with the force of his will alone.

“You might want to draw the curtains,” Sam says, dropping into a sofa in front of the window and eyeing the unconscious Hydra agent on the floor. Steve hastily takes his advice, blocking the line of sight for any snipers in the surrounding buildings.

“What happened, Steve?” Sam asks.

Steve sits on the other sofa which is perpendicular to the one Sam is sitting on. One sofa faces the TV, the other is more like a loveseat under the window. They have the open door to the hall between them. Bucky is standing facing Sam on the other side of Steve. If he wanted to bolt, he would have a head start into the kitchen where the back door is.

Steve glances at Bucky, who is looking disapproving, but Steve knows it wouldn’t help to lie. “Bucky was escaping. I went with him.”

“And now you’re in a Hydra safe house?”

“I haven’t betrayed SHIELD. I wouldn’t have let it go too far,” Steve promises him.

“This has already gone too far, Steve,” he says, and nudges the agent at his feet. “So what _was_ your plan?”

“I didn’t really have one,” he admits.

“And now?”

“I’m kind of hoping you’re going to help me out,” he says with a sheepish, hopeful smile.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve used up all my favours where this is concerned, Steve,” he says, levelling his gaze at him.

“Fury let you come here to talk to me. I must still have something left to bargain with.”

Sam hesitates for a moment, then concedes. “Obviously, it would be better to avoid a fight. You’re still dangerous, as is he. They don’t want to risk him escaping, possibly without you there to hold the reigns this time. They don’t want the publicity of Captain America going rogue. That would be a big clean up for them. If you were willing to come back to SHIELD peacefully, with no collateral damage, well… I think you might have some wiggle room when it comes to negotiating the terms of your surrender.”

Steve looks at Bucky. It hinges on him really, and whether or not he is willing to go back into SHIELD custody. If he did, he could get the help he needs. He could remember who he is. Steve could get the real Bucky back. But if he forces him, he might ruin whatever small trust they’ve managed to build up.

“What do you want to do?” Steve asks Bucky, who scowls at him but doesn’t reply. It seems he doesn’t want to reveal to Sam that he can speak English. Steve stands and approaches him slowly, taking hold of his arms, which Bucky unfolds as if to push him away without actually doing so.

“I want to go back, Buck. I want you to come with me. I know you might not believe me, and I know you hate SHIELD, and maybe you’re right to, but they can help you. You know something’s not right, don’t you? You know Hydra did something to you, hurt you. Your spirit hurts, I know you can feel it. That’s not right.

“I’ve never let them hurt you and I never will. Everything else aside, I’m your Alpha, and you’re my Omega. You’ve got me in your back pocket. I’m with you to the end of the line.”

He says it almost without thinking, so natural, so true is it. He’s said it before any number of times, but not in the last seventy years. It’s a promise, he’s not expecting a reaction, but Bucky jerks in his hands and stares at him. Something changes in his eyes, like the guard drops away and reveals a deep blue pool of horror and pain.

“Bucky?” Steve whispers, because he thinks for the first time he is actually looking at _Bucky_.

“Ste-?” is all he gets out before he is cut off by a grunt, his body suddenly going limp as his jaw grits against a pain, his eyes rolling back in his head. What is left of the crack in his aura glows white hot, as thin as the filament in a light bulb, but it sparks as it punishes him.

Steve keeps him from falling, lowering him to his knees gently. Bucky groans, his hand going to his head while he leans forward and supports himself on his metal arm. He rocks back and forth, his groan becoming a yell as the pain overtakes him. Steve’s hands hover around him ineffectually.

“What’s wrong with him?” Sam asks, rushing to the floor beside Bucky.

“I think I reminded him of something, I think he’s fighting Hydra’s control,” Steve explains in a hurry.

“Can you help him? You know, remind him some more, channel some aura?”

Steve shakes his head and swallows. “His spirit’s overloading, it feels too hot to touch. If I try to connect with him now, I might make it worse.”

Bucky starts to shake his head, murmuring “No, no, no.” Before Steve can stop him, he smacks his head against the floor, hard. Steve grabs him but he breaks free and does it twice more before Steve can get a good enough grip to pull him up and look at him. Bucky’s forehead is bleeding now and his eyes are unfocused. He reaches out, cupping the back of Steve’s neck with his hand and pulling him down.

“Take me back to SHIELD,” he mutters. “Don’t let me out, okay? Promise me,”

“Okay, I promise, okay,” Steve hastily agrees, nodding even as Bucky’s hand on his neck burns his skin, puts a chill in his bones and a hot wet lust in his groin.

Bucky smiles, a crooked, flirty thing, his eyes on Steve’s open mouth. “Good,” he says, and passes out, falling sideways onto Steve’s arm.

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

It’s been five weeks, and Steve is standing in front of his mirror in a suit and tie with a bouquet in his hand. He adjusts his tie, buttons then unbuttons his jacket, combs his nails through his hair. He takes a deep breath then lets it out slowly. Today is the day they’re letting him see Bucky.

When they first got back to SHIELD, Steve stayed with him. They kept him sedated while they assembled a medical team for him, people who could theoretically deal with what had been done to him. It was all theory because, apart from Steve, no one had ever had their spirit-read changed before. They were experts in psychological and neurological conditioning, post-traumatic stress, and spirit-medicine. Each the best in the world.

Steve vetted a security team himself, people he trusted not to hurt Bucky. No Alphas, and only calm, cool-headed people, sympathetic people. They were people who knew and liked Steve, who would be generous towards Bucky on his behalf, and who knew what the consequences would be if Bucky got so much as a scratch.

When they woke Bucky up, he was violent - and Russian - again. He felt betrayed by Steve and tried to attack him. He didn’t remember asking Steve to take him back. In the end, it was decided that if Steve couldn’t help, he should just get out of the way and let the doctors do their jobs. So Steve sat outside Bucky’s secure medical room, listening, cataloguing the doctors in his mind, doing his best to protect Bucky and stay with him.

The doctors asked him to let his mark lapse. He said no. They made a convincing argument, but Steve said it wasn’t possible, he wouldn’t do that. Fury promised him that Bucky would still be there when he was better, no one would steal him from Steve. Steve said it wasn’t just that, he needed the bond to check up on Bucky, to make sure he was okay, to know if he needed him. Then the doctors told him his strong Alpha aura was blocking the treatments and giving them false test results on Bucky’s condition. They didn’t know what they were really dealing with because a percentage of it was actually Steve. They would never be able to fix Bucky as long as he had Steve’s strength to fall back on. Steve said his aura was the only thing holding Bucky together. They told him they could accomplish the same thing without him.

So, eventually, against every instinct he had, Steve let his aura fade from Bucky’s. Letting him go felt like losing him all over again. He still went to sit outside his room, he had to, but he felt blindfolded. He wanted to put his ear to the door. He wanted to let Bucky know he was there, that he hadn’t been abandoned, that Steve still wanted him. It was part of the deal that the doctors explain that to Bucky before it happened, and Steve tried to listen in, but he couldn’t hear anything through the sealed door.

That was almost a month ago. After a couple of weeks, he trusted the doctors enough to allow himself to be chased away, ordered by Fury. He still got updates several times a day, phoning the doctors to ask questions and make nervous threats. Finally, they told him that Bucky was doing well enough to receive visitors. They had asked him not to place another mark, at least not on the first visit, but a voice in Steve’s head said they couldn’t stop him. If it felt right, he’d do it.

He leaves his quarters and takes the elevator to the medical suites. He is alone most of the way there, but gets some funny looks from people he passes and shares the elevator with. It’s the flowers. He picked yellow ones that resemble daisies, and they’re crushed together in a solid lump, wrapped in green paper. The bouquet isn’t huge because he’s still unsure how they will be received, but if Bucky is uncomfortable, he’ll take them away again. The yellow daisies seemed appropriate for someone in hospital, even if Bucky doesn’t want them to be romantic.

Steve knows what he wants. People think that when Alphas and Omegas meet, their spirits take over and they are compelled to mate, and that’s true, to an extent. The pull is there. But it can be resisted. And now Bucky is no longer connected to him, Steve has not gone back to how he was before as if it never happened. He misses him, there is a part of him missing. Steve’s spirit hasn’t stopped yearning and reaching for Bucky since the mark lapsed. Steve loves Bucky, always has. They were best friends, they were brothers, but this is different. Steve wants Bucky in his bed now, in his arms. He wants to wrap Bucky up in the heart of him and just… carry him around for the rest of their lives. Warm and safe.

Bucky was the most important person in his life seventy years ago when they weren’t mated or marked or anything else, when Bucky was a Beta and there was no pull between them. Steve loved Bucky. And Bucky… Well, Bucky had always stayed with him.

Steve arrives at the medical quarters. He has to put in a code and is afraid for a moment that it won’t work, but it does. The door bleeps and unlocks, and when he is on the other side, he just stands for a moment, unsure where to go. He knows which room is Bucky’s, he can see it from here, but he expected to be met by a doctor or a nurse. He expected to be watched. He can’t believe that after talking him into letting his mark lapse that they are okay with him just walking into Bucky’s room like nothing happened.

A man in a white coat crosses the corridor in front of him and Steve catches his arm. “Excuse me, I’m here to see-”

“Ah! Right, of course,” the man says with a big smile, obviously recognising Steve. “This way.” He gestures behind him and Steve allows himself to be led. His attitude is soothing. He’s not spirited, but he feels like an Omega, the same way Natasha and Fury feel like Alphas.

They stop at Bucky’s door and the doctor reaches for the handle, pausing to nod at Steve with a smile. “I’ll let him know you’re here.” He goes inside, leaving the door ajar so Steve can hear. “Bucky? Steve is here to see you,” the man says.

Steve feels like his heart is pressing against his ribcage trying to listen as he strains to catch Bucky’s reply, Bucky’s voice.

“Okay, let me- let me just, um, can you pass me that hair tie there?”

The words are normal. Bucky sounds nervous. Steve almost cries at the sound of it. He sounds rough, like he’s just woken up after a night of gargling nails, but the voice is all Bucky’s, all American, Brooklyn in the 1940s.

“This one?”

“Thanks.”

There is a pause. “Would you like to sit at the table?” The doctor again.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Shall I help you?”

“I got it, Doc.”

There is the sound of chair legs scraping against the floor and a body’s weight landing on the chair.

“Shall I send him in?”

Bucky must make some kind of gesture because there are no more words before the door is opening and the doctor is standing in front of Steve, smiling and welcoming him inside. Steve swallows thickly. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to speak. His heart feels like it’s running a marathon all on its own.

This is ridiculous, he tells himself. It’s not his first date, it’s not his prom night, he’s not losing his virginity. Bucky would laugh to know he is like this. But it is Bucky he has to face, his best friend, who he marked as a mate, who tried to kill him, who he hasn’t seen in seventy years, who he ran away with and who he thought was dead.

He goes into the room. The small table with two chairs is almost immediately in front of the door. Bucky is sitting in the chair across the table from him. He is wearing papery hospital pyjamas, and one of his sleeves is empty. His dark hair is pulled back messily into a half-bun. He is pale and thin and he still needs a shave. He looks at Steve and Steve can barely see him because he feels like he might pass out.

Steve’s spirit wants to mark him all over again, now, as a matter of urgency. It doesn’t want to let this Omega be free for another second. It doesn’t want to be without him for another second. The risk that Bucky might be claimed by another or might escape him again feels like risking death.

“Hey,” Bucky croaks after looking Steve up and down.

The doctor closes the door behind him as he leaves them alone.

Steve realises he is making Bucky uncomfortable and that wakes him up enough to make it to the chair, fairly normally he feels. He sits down, lying the bouquet on the table and wiping his wet palms on his trouser legs.

“Hey,” he returns, still swallowing back the spirit that is straining to burst out of him. But this is not about that. This visit is so he can _talk_ to Bucky, not make all the same mistakes again. “They took your arm,” he says first, as his most pressing concern. “Do you want me to get it back for you? I can probably get it back, you know, I can find a doctor or somebody-”

Bucky shakes his head. “Nah. It’s okay like this. Sometimes I, uh, I forget where I am. It’s safer like this for now.”

Now Steve feels like a heel for bringing it up, because Bucky looks haunted and self-conscious, but Steve is still pitting his will against the strongest Alpha spirit on the continent.

“Nice suit,” Bucky offers.

Steve looks at himself as if what he is wearing is a surprise to him too, then feels like an idiot for doing so. “Thanks,” he replies. He knows he won’t feel better until he touches Bucky, but it’s too dangerous. He wouldn’t be able to touch him and not totally take him over.

“Nice flowers,” Bucky continues.

“They’re for you,” Steve tells him, a bit too loud, a bit too fast, looking up as he remembers and seizes onto this conversational track, an arrow pointing back to where he wants to be. His eyes meet Bucky’s and he regrets it, stuck like a fly in amber. Bucky’s aura looks like a swirling slate chasm to Steve, reaching out for him, begging him to make it whole and end its pain. Steve forces his eyes to refocus, not to get sucked in, and the aura takes on a more serene grey sheen, the body of it tinged with blue like a lake reflecting a cloudy sky. It looks healthier, more whole. That crack is just a scar now, the edges aren’t frayed. Bucky is better than he was. But to Steve, it still looks like it needs him.

“For me?” Bucky repeats, his eyebrows going up. He pulls a face, like a New Yorker haggling for bagels. He is trying to act, to pretend. He is miming his old self to try to overcome the awkwardness between them. Steve knows this because he knows Bucky.

“Yeah, I thought, you know… Since you’re in hospital. If you don’t like them, I can-”

“I don’t have a vase,” Bucky says, twisting in his chair to look around. Steve looks with him, trying to find one together. The hospital room is nice, big. The lights are low and warm, there are paintings on the walls, the bed looks comfortable. Bucky’s nightstand is littered with miscellaneous junk. There is a TV mounted on the wall and a remote on the dresser on the other side of the room.

“I think there’s a glass in the bathroom,” Bucky says, and Steve is up on his feet, heading to the bathroom. He finds the glass by the sink and fills it, trying, praying to get a hold on himself. He can’t talk to Bucky because all he wants to do is make him his, but he wants to make a good impression so badly he could hit something.

He brings the glass back and sets it on the table, putting the flowers in the water. He overfilled it, so now water splashes onto the table. Steve hurriedly pulls the flowers out, but now they are dripping, and he has nothing to wipe the water up with. “Sorry,” he says. He presses the back of his hand to his forehead, begging his spirit to calm down and let him think. He was never cool, but it’s been a long time since he was this clumsy and bumbling.

Bucky chuckles roughly. “It’s just water, Steve. Put the flowers back in the glass and sit down.”

Now Bucky has told him to do it it’s easy to do. He follows the simple commands and sits with his hands in his lap, watching his fingers twist together. “Sorry,” he says again. “It’s just hard for me not to-” He cuts himself off. He doesn’t want to tell Bucky and risk scaring him.

“To what?”

Steve glances at him. “My, er, spirit still wants you. Wants to… you know. Makes it hard to think properly,” he says sheepishly.

Bucky lets out a breath. “Yeah,” he agrees, nodding. “I can feel it.”

The draw from Bucky’s spirit is no longer like gravity, like rolling downhill like a river. It is a vacuum, aggressively pulling at him. And his own Alpha spirit is like a team of wild horses pulling to charge into that abyss, and Steve only has one hand on the reins.

“Is it always like this?” Bucky asks quietly. “When you were an Omega, did you feel like this?”

“Like how?” Steve replies, feeling that whatever Bucky says next could save or destroy him.

“Like… one person holds all the answers? One person just shines and you can’t see anyone else in the room? Like as long as that person is looking at you with a smile, nothing can hurt you?”

Steve tries to remember back to before the experiment, but he can’t, not when he is thinking that’s how Bucky feels about him. He shakes his head. If he had ever felt that way, he wouldn’t have run from Alphas the way he had.

“I only ever felt that way about you,” he says, realising it for the first time.

Bucky pauses. “You know, before the War… I wanted you. Knew I couldn’t have you, but it didn’t change anything. I’d take on any Alpha to keep them away from you. I was so afraid one day you’d find one, or one would find you. I knew how quick it could happen. Guess it was selfish, but you always looked at me like you were glad, so I didn’t feel too mean about it. Maybe you could have been happier with an Alpha though, I don’t know.”

“No, I couldn’t have been happier. I _was_ glad,” Steve tells him. “Do you mind what I did, Buck? I gotta know. Marking you the way I did, I mean?”

Bucky drops his gaze, looking at the table. There’s a pause while Steve’s heart waits on a high wire. “It wasn’t me, Steve,” he says. “That wasn’t me. If that’s the one you want, I can’t go back.”

“No, no!” Steve says, reaching out before remembering he can’t touch him. “It was to protect you! You’d been gone for so long, I thought you had died. I- When I saw you again I just, I had to-” Steve hesitates, trying to find the words. “You were hurt,” he says. “I felt like I could help and I was never going to let you go again.” Bucky stares at him as if to read the truth of his words in his eyes. “I’m sorry if you wish I hadn’t,” he finishes.

There is a moment of quiet as Bucky considers. “You didn’t finish the claim,” he states. It is really a question, but Bucky’s voice is sheltered, as if he wants to look like he doesn’t care about the answer.

“Well, like you said,” Steve answers. “It wasn’t you.”

The moment is heavy. It’s an admission. A big one. If he was trying to go back to being best friends with Bucky, he’s blown it. He’s playing his hand.

“So what happens next?” Bucky asks, his blue eyes nervous.

“Whatever you want,” Steve tells him.

“The doctors aren’t finished with me yet,” he replies. “And SHIELD-”

“No,” Steve promises. “It’s what _you_ want. You want to stay here? Okay. You want to leave? You got it.”

“And you?”

“I… I’m here if you want me. I’ll follow you.”

“That easy, huh?”

“Easiest thing in the world, far as I’m concerned.”

“Sorry for dragging you around the way I did,” Bucky says. “And thanks for looking out for me.”

“Don’t mention it. I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, Buck.” Steve doesn’t catch himself in time, the familiar phrase falling from his mouth with ease. He tenses, afraid he has just put his foot it in it somehow after the last time.

Bucky scowls darkly and looks away, but he doesn’t seem to be in pain.

“Are you okay?” Steve checks.

Bucky looks back at him, his expression clearing a little. “Yeah, that’s just one of the things they couldn’t get rid of, you know? All my memories of that are fake, some guy named Stanis in Stalingrad. It’s all Russian in my head.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you, Buck. I’m sorry they did that to you. I’m sorry I didn’t look for you like I should have, I shouldn’t have just accepted that-”

“Stop, Steve. Stop. It’s nobody’s fault but Hydra’s,” Bucky tells him. “And hey, if Hydra hadn’t caught me, I wouldn’t be here now. You wouldn’t have anyone from back home to keep you company.”

Steve knows that Bucky is putting on a brave face, and it is a thin one at that. “You don’t mind that… they made you an Omega?” This is something else Steve needs to know. It’s easy, and common, to see the spirits as a hierarchy rather than as equals with different strengths and abilities. Steve is presented as a success story, because he ascended from Omega to Alpha. Bucky has been made an Omega from a Beta. He might see it as a demotion. He might not want that role in his relationship with Steve.

“Of course I mind, I really fucking mind that they did that to me!” he cries, angry for the first time. He has to take a moment to calm himself down. “I never volunteered like you did. But, if I wasn’t an Omega, I couldn’t be with you,” he adds, as if that balances the scales somehow.

“If you want me, I’m yours. I’m ready and waiting, but the doctors don’t think it’s a good idea, not yet,” Steve explains.

Bucky grunts in frustrated agreement. “Doctors, what do they know?” he grumbles, but he shoots Steve a wry smile that lets him know he is only kidding. “You gonna come back and see me then?” he asks.

“Every day if they let me,” Steve answers.

“There any other Omegas in this building?”

“Some,” Steve admitted, letting himself enjoy it when Bucky’s eyes tighten in jealousy. “Couldn’t tell you how many, or who they are. I don’t even notice them, Bucky,” he concedes, unable to keep him in suspense.

“Good,” Bucky growls, sending a piercing bolt of white hot lust down Steve’s spine.

“There are other Alphas in here,” he points out, needing the strength of Hercules to keep his spirit in check. “Your doctors.”

Bucky grimaces. “I don’t like them,” he says.

“I could get rid of them. Have they hurt you?” Steve reacts instantly, ready to kill Bucky’s doctors if any of them has touched him.

Bucky crooks a smile again. “No. They just feel wrong, you know? They’re not you.”

“I’ll ask the doctors how long we have to wait,” Steve says breathlessly. “Damn, I wish I could touch you.”

At that moment, the door opens wide and the well-meaning doctor strides in as if it was his cue, making them both jump and dispelling the atmosphere. “How are we getting on?” he asks cheerily.

Steve recognises the interruption for what it is. His time is up. He doesn’t want to leave Bucky, but he feels soothed and elated by what they’ve discussed. Bucky, the real Bucky, wants him too. Wants him to claim him. Wants to be his mate. And he is _well_ , it’s really him. There will undoubtedly be a long recovery in front of them after everything Bucky has been through, it won’t be a quick fix if he ever _can_ be fixed, but soon, maybe in a few weeks, they would release him into Steve’s care.

“Great, really great,” Steve says, grinning.

“Good!” says the doctor, and he sounds like he actually means it, like there was the chance it wouldn’t go well. “Bucky’s doctor would like to see him, if that’s okay? And we can discuss when you would next like to come back.”

Steve is being moved on, and his spirit doesn’t want to go, but Steve forces himself up anyway. He’ll play along and be good. The doctors have helped Bucky so much already, he won’t jeopardise that. He smiles at Bucky. “I’ll see you real soon,” he says. He goes to follow the doctor out of the open door.

Before he gets through it, it is snapped shut, closing the doctor out. Bucky spins Steve and shoves him against the wall, crowding into his space and jamming their mouths together. Steve groans. As their spirits touch they throw off sparks, but Steve barely notices as all the excess in him, which he sometimes feels is all he is, drops into the hollow Bucky’s aura has made for it. It is as instant as a door slamming, and they are marked again.

Steve feels it like a weight off his shoulders, like he can finally stand tall and breathe free, but he is far too distracted by Bucky to pay much attention to what their spirits are doing. Their spirits will sort themselves out, follow ancient instinctive patterns to join and create a new whole. This, what Bucky is doing, requires presence of mind.

Steve kisses him back without hesitation, taking Bucky’s face in both hands. He tilts his head and opens his mouth, his tongue hitting Bucky’s as it hurries to meet him. Their mouths slant together in a perfect fit, and Steve is instantly hard. He could take Bucky right now, in this room, if he could ever break away from his mouth. He is perfect. The hand Bucky has left gropes at Steve’s chest as if it is trying to commit as much to memory as possible as quickly as possible, but it can’t quite get over a fascination with his right pec which it keeps returning to at the end of each sweep.

Bucky pushes his whole body against Steve’s, almost crushing him against the wall, as if he can’t get close enough. Steve lets go of Bucky’s face and grabs his waist instead, using it to anchor Bucky against him, one hand palming his ass, slipping lower to pull his thigh up against his hip so he can better press their groins together, Steve gently rocking his dick against Bucky’s in a move he didn’t know he knew.

“Um, sorry, excuse me…” A little voice eventually works its way into Steve’s head, getting his attention. “Captain Rogers? Bucky?”

They slow their kiss, Steve being the last to pull away, not wanting to let Bucky go. His spirit is thrumming with his connection to the other man and his Omega spirit. Steve looks to see what the interruption is, finding the doctor at his shoulder.

After an awkward pause, he continues. “I’m sorry, Bucky really is needed in therapy.” The man is blushing. Steve remembers they weren’t supposed to do that. Oh well.

Steve looks at Bucky, the man in his arms. Bucky gives him a pleased grin, and pulls himself off Steve. Their new bond keeps humming or Steve might not let him go.

“I’ll see you tonight then?” Bucky asks him.

“Yeah, tonight,” Steve replies, struck dumb.

The doctor is struggling to look neutral. “I’ll try to get him cleared,” he says.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

Steve is back at sundown to collect Bucky from the medical wing. He knows the doctors aren’t happy about it but he doesn’t care. It’s not like they’ve never worked on a mated person before, they can do it again. He’ll try to keep his aura from blocking their treatments, but at this point, he doesn’t care. His faculties are totally devoted to bringing his Omega home. 

After his visit with Bucky earlier, he went back to his quarters and changed into casual clothes, things that will come off easily, and then tidied the apartment. He changed the sheets on the bed and made sure he had everything he would need. He made sure he had enough food for two people for a few days. He still had the toothbrush Bucky had used before and he laid out a towel for him, his blood warming at the simple thought of Bucky using his shower.

He felt Bucky the whole time they were apart, like a shadow leaning against him. It was difficult when they weren’t even on the same floor of the building, but their connection was new and had not been made with any kind of restraint. They were not tied by a few strings of aura, Bucky was not wearing shreds of Steve’s red spirit, instead they had mixed like paint. If they stayed apart, their individual colours would assert themselves again, but they weren’t planning on doing that. Steve kept all his spiritual gates open, not wanting to feel Bucky’s essence fade, not wanting to wonder how the other man was feeling, what he was doing. He wouldn’t let anything happen to him now.

Bucky is ready and waiting for him when Steve is allowed onto the medical floor. The atmosphere has changed. Several doctors and nurses are hanging around, watching. None of them smile or welcome Steve. It is obvious that he and Bucky have messed up their plans. Steve doesn’t care particularly, as long as it doesn’t undo all the progress Bucky has made. Even though he has everything he wants coming into reach, he doesn’t want to hurt Bucky. He wants him to get better more than he wants them to mate.

Bucky is dressed in civilian clothes now, a black t-shirt and jeans, black boots. His hair is down. Steve expects him to have a bag, but he doesn’t. Everything he owns has been supplied by SHIELD, and he can get that at Steve’s apartment as easily as he can in Medical. He smiles when he sees Steve, waiting as he is in the corridor in his cluster of disapproving doctors.

Steve grins when he sees him. He wants to take his hand and simply pull him away. Bucky smiles too, though it is still shadowed and restrained. His smiles might always be tinged with a little sadness.

“I knew you were coming,” he says, like it was magic.

Steve barely has it in him to make conversation. He can’t bear to make small talk now. “Ready?” he asks simply, holding out his hand.

Bucky takes it, and Steve’s heart beats faster. Bucky lets himself be led down the hall, but before they leave Medical, he tugs Steve to a stop. Steve looks at him, wondering what the delay is.

“Um, do you want me to get my arm?” Bucky asks. His voice is quiet and unsure. “I haven’t asked, but they might give it to me, for this.”

“Oh. Sure,” Steve says. It hadn’t occurred to him, so focussed was he on getting Bucky to his room. “Do you want it? I can wait that long. You know, if there’s anything else you need-”

“I mean, would you rather I have it?” Bucky said.

Steve blinked at him. “I don’t mind,” he said. “If you’re more comfortable with it…”

Bucky snorts a short laugh and shakes his head, looking at the floor.

“What?” Steve asks.

“Nothing. Let’s go,” Bucky tells him. Steve is unsettled, thinking he’s missed something here, worried that he’s not meeting all of Bucky’s needs, but Bucky gestures him through the door and if Bucky wants to continue then Steve isn’t going to hold them up.

Their brief journey through the building feels like it flies by, a blur. All Steve can remember from it is the feeling of Bucky’s hand in his, the pride and anticipation of taking him to his quarters. They get to his door and as soon as it’s closed behind them, their hands are on each other and they are kissing again.

Steve gathers the bottom of Bucky’s shirt in his hands, pulling it up. Bucky breaks the kiss and Steve pulls the shirt over his head, his dark hair falling into his face as Steve drops the shirt on the floor. Bucky’s shoulder is shining metal with a hollow socket, but the rest of him is glowing skin over packed muscle spattered with scars. His chest is mostly free of hair, but a black treasure trail starts just below his sternum and leads under his jeans. Steve just glances this before pulling Bucky’s mouth back to its rightful place on his.

Bucky has his hand under Steve’s shirt, running his thumb up the line between his abs and back down. He dips his fingertip into Steve’s bellybutton, making those muscles tense, then strokes his thumb over the elastic of Steve’s underwear which is sticking out from his pants where they hang low on his hips. Steve’s dick pulses at the tickling touch. Bucky’s hand circles round to Steve’s back and travels up to his shoulders, seizing handfuls of muscle, his fingers gripping into the dip of his spine. Bucky only has one hand, but it still feels to Steve like Bucky is somehow touching him everywhere.

He pulls his hand out of Steve’s t-shirt and grips the collar, yanking it down and to the side, tearing it enough to get his hand on Steve’s chest, immediately going for his pec, his thumb strumming his nipple.

Steve pants against Bucky’s mouth, opening his eyes and staring into smug blue irises with blown out pupils. “My shirt,” he says, a token objection. Feeling Bucky rip his clothes off him has made him hard as diamonds.

“I’ve only got one hand,” Bucky breathes back with a smirk. “I have to improvise.”

Steve gives Bucky a deep, hot look, and grabs the sides of the split in his shirt, easily pulling it into shreds, shrugging out of it like a jacket.

“Show off,” Bucky scolds him, before ducking his head and licking a stripe just under Steve’s collar bone. His breath is hot and wet against Steve’s skin just before his mouth captures his nipple.

Steve groans and tips his head back, his hand cupping the back of Bucky’s neck, fingers slipping through his hair. “We need to take this to the bedroom,” he pants. He means it as a matter of urgency, because he is so hard his dick hurts inside his jeans, and if Bucky keeps doing that he might come. With one hand he pushes Bucky close, grinding against his stomach, needing the pressure.

Bucky’s mouth leaves his chest and he straightens. “Agreed,” he rasps.

Steve ducks down and grabs Bucky’s hips, his arm going around his ass, and he picks him up, half throwing him over his shoulder. Bucky is heavy with muscle, but Steve can manage him easily. He chuckles as Bucky’s hands slip on Steve’s back as he tries to keep himself up. Steve toes off his shoes as he walks and bends as he walks through the doorway into the bedroom.

“Watch your head,” he says, and Bucky ducks, lying over Steve’s shoulder.

He can feel Bucky’s ass against his arm and starts making promises to himself to keep himself going. Soon. Soon. He wants to take his time with Bucky. He wants foreplay. He wants to touch him and kiss him and lick him. He wants to use his hands.

He lowers Bucky as best he can onto his bed, but it is still a short drop. Bucky’s hair spreads over the pillows as he sweeps it back from his face, looking at Steve, his mouth a little open. Steve pulls his arm out from under Bucky, who has his legs bent and apart, and starts undoing Bucky’s fly as he kicks his shoes off. Steve tries to tug the pants down Bucky’s hips, but they won’t come without Bucky’s help. Steve gets distracted by the erection pushing against Bucky’s plain blue boxers anyway. His head falls toward it, his mouth open and wanting to taste, when Bucky speaks.

“Hey, Steve?” he says conversationally.

“Yeah?” he answers, probably looking stupid frozen half way to getting Bucky’s dick in his mouth.

“Hydra did things to me. Stuff like this, I mean. They said it was part of being an Omega, what I was good for.”

It is like being stabbed, a bucket of ice water in the face, an iron rod being shoved down his throat. Steve is torn between the equal desires of murdering the people responsible and comforting his mate. A flame of rage crisps his skin just as his blood turns to ice. Suddenly he’s not sure that what he’s doing is right anymore. He sits up.

“Do you want to stop?” he says.

“No. I just wanted you to know,” Bucky tells him.

Steve thinks about it for a moment more. “Do you want me do anything? I can help you find them and we can-”

Bucky shakes his head. “I don’t want to think about them,” he says.

Steve looks at him, his head on Steve’s pillow, his legs split so Steve can kneel almost crotch-to-crotch with him. “Is there anything I shouldn’t do? In particular?”

Bucky hums as he seems to think about it, but as he casts back through the memories, his aura wobbles and seems to vibrate at a panicked frequency that gets louder. He is remembering, and Steve doesn’t want him to if it hurts him like that, so he pours more of his own aura into Bucky, projecting strength and care and sheltered protection. He makes Bucky _feel_ that he has a strong Alpha.

“Maybe just tell me if I do anything you don’t like,” he says when Bucky’s aura is calm again.

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs, his eyes on Steve’s bare chest, his interest in the past lost in favour of the present. He tucks his ankles against Steve’s ass and spurs him forward against him.

“You’re sure about this?” Steve checks again.

Bucky’s eyes flick back up to his face. “Yeah,” he says. “Make me yours.”

It doesn’t sound cheesy in the moment, though they would have laughed about a line like that at another time. Instead, Steve knows it is what Bucky’s soul longs for, to finally be owned by someone safe and strong, no longer at the mercy of whatever scientist or guard wanted him, to have a home. And it is like a drug to Steve, something in his blood, in his body, that makes his heart beat strong and hot. His spirit focuses him on Bucky as a mate, not as a survivor.

He leans over Bucky, an arm on either side of him, trapping him and making Steve’s body into a roof and a shield. He lowers his head for a slow kiss, his bare skin settling against Bucky’s as the rest of him follows. Bucky’s chest moves against Steve’s as he breathes, his heartbeat against his stomach.

Steve regrets that he has to break the kiss to talk, but he stays close to Bucky, kissing his neck and murmuring in his ear, “Take your pants off.”

Bucky moans and struggles to comply, but he can’t with only one hand and Steve on top of him.

“Want me to do it?” Steve whispers.

“Get off me,” Bucky replies, so Steve rolls to the side and watches as Bucky strips naked. He then rounds on Steve. “Now, tough guy…” His hand goes to Steve’s fly, his touch an irritating dance as he gets the button undone and then the zipper, then starts jerking the jeans down.

As much as Steve would love to let Bucky unwrap him slowly, teasing him and keeping him in maddening suspense, tonight is not the night. He lifts his hips and whips the pants off, and he is quickly as naked as Bucky. Neither of them can hide how aroused they are, and Steve takes a moment to just look at Bucky, consuming him hungrily with his eyes. His thighs are apart, his dark body hair only serving to draw attention to his standing cock, which still looks like a place for Steve’s face to be. He can smell Bucky and it makes his mouth water.

He reaches for him slowly, smiling, pulling Bucky to him and kissing him again. He pushes Bucky down, kissing him all the while, until he is lying on his back. An electric thrill zips through Steve as their dicks touch for the first time, making him twitch. Together they are a curious mix of hard and soft, delicate skin and the demanding press of blood.

His spirit is bearing down on him to finish the claim, do it hard and fast so it’s done. Omegas like that, it’s telling him, they like to be dominated and shown how strong their Alpha is. But knowing Bucky’s history, and having been an Omega himself, he isn’t fooled. An Alpha who shows control and care – love – is really impressive.

Bucky’s spirit is riding him too, pulling at him, tempting him, but as long as he controls his own, he can handle it. After all, he is not saying no, just not yet. He is just as determined to make Bucky his by the end of the night.

Steve pulls away and gives Bucky a flirty smile. He wants to make sure that he is still sure. Bucky looks placid and content with what’s happening. He reaches down and starts stroking his dick while he’s waiting for Steve’s next move, legs open like it’s nothing. He’s going to be waiting a long time, because Steve has petrified, stiffened in place and is just watching as a wet film of sweat shines on Bucky’s stomach, and the way his stomach gets a little tighter with every exhale bringing him closer to the edge. Steve is hypnotised by the minute twitches of Bucky’s body, the unsatisfied lift and roll of his hips. It’s a show alright.

“Steve?” Bucky says, pausing. He stops what he’s doing and gives Steve a poke in the arm. He breaks out of his trance with a jerk. “You still with me?”

“Yeah! Yeah… Yeah,” Steve replies, the most he can offer at that moment.

Another smug grin sneaks onto Bucky’s face. “Roll over.”

“Hmm?”

Bucky sits up and gently guides Steve down onto his back. He straddles Steve, whose hand goes automatically to his thigh to settle him. Bucky shifts back out of his grasp, smiling, his hand going to Steve’s chest.

“I have always wanted to do this,” he says, leaning down and kissing Steve’s neck, then his collarbone, breaking his kisses up with licks and nips. “I used to imagine what it would be like if I was an Alpha, back home. What I would do if I got you into bed with me, how I’d claim you. How I would convince you to stay with a Beta like me, how I could please you. At least, I think I did. That’s what I remember anyway.”

“God, Buck,” Steve gasps as Bucky progresses down his chest to his nipple, catching it between his teeth. Steve’s cock feels harder than it’s ever been, and full, heavy. Trapped under Bucky’s body in the heat, the skin of his stomach dragging against the head of Steve’s dick is torture.

Listening to him talk about fucking Steve as an Omega is doing things to Steve’s head, because there will always be that tiny, deep down core that is still Omega, and that bit loves to think about Bucky fucking him, as much as his Alpha spirit wants to be on top. That little bit of Steve wants Bucky to give him a safe, strong home as well.

“Yeah, just like that. I always imagined you would sound just like that,” Bucky groans, his hand coming up to attend to the nipple his mouth can’t reach. This puts more weight on Steve, and sandwiches his dick between their bodies, adding to the pressure and the friction. Bucky switches his mouth to the other nipple, wetting it with flat enveloping licks, then adjusts his position to move down Steve’s stomach.

His hand wraps around Steve’s dick, and Steve’s eyes almost bug out of his head. Bucky dips his tongue into Steve’s bellybutton as he strokes him off slowly. The way his fingers slip over the head of his cock tells Steve how wet he is. Bucky seals his mouth over Steve’s navel and sucks, sending a twinge through his stomach and into his dick. He grips Steve’s cock tighter, pumping him faster. Steve is writhing on the bed, his hands on Bucky’s shoulders, one leg bent flush against Bucky’s side, the metal of his shoulder socket scratching his inner thigh but he doesn’t care.

Bucky licks around his navel like he’s collecting the salt after a tequila body shot then places a tender kiss on the straining muscle just above Steve’s dick and it’s enough, Steve comes with a groan, his hips lifting from the bed as Bucky milks him and smiles. He comes quickly and briefly. It takes the edge off his need, but his body isn’t fooled, it knows this isn’t the moment he claims his Omega. He pants and looks down his body at Bucky who is smirking up at him. He has come painting his chest and neck and hand, even a little bit in his hair. The sight, and the knowledge that his mate is wearing his seed, snaps Steve’s spirit’s patience.

“You’ve done it now,” he breathes, hauling Bucky up his body and flipping them. He pins Bucky on his back with one hand as he works his hips between his thighs. He’s sure Bucky can feel the change in his spirit, because there is an excited, expectant spark in his eye. He knows the time has come and he is waiting.

Steve sits up to reach for his bedside table and the bottle of lube, and Bucky brushes his fingertips lightly through the dark gold hair at the root of Steve’s cock.

“You’re still hard,” he marvels.

Steve pins him with a gaze. “I still want you,” he says.

He pours the lube onto his fingers, using his other hand to spread it, then takes hold of Bucky’s dick for a few exploratory strokes to make use of the lube that now coats his palm. He presses his thumb into the underside and Bucky’s knees fall open as the man pants and licks his bottom lip, his mouth open, his back arching.

Steve lowers his other hand between Bucky’s legs. “Ready?” he asks, hand hovering.

Bucky nods determinedly, and Steve touches his fingertips to his entrance, the bud of flesh tensing reflexively in response. He circles his wet finger to spread the lube and get him to relax.

“Okay?” he asks, not stopping.

“Yeah,” Bucky breathes, watching Steve.

“Sure?”

“I said yes, didn’t I?” Bucky insists.

Steve smiles, moving to lean over Bucky. “I know,” he says, kissing Bucky’s shoulder and then his neck. “I just like hearing you say it. I love you, Buck,” he tells him, pulling his face out of Bucky’s hair so he can see his eyes.

“You too,” Bucky mumbles back. “Love you too.” He spurs Steve by tapping his shin against his arm. “Stop stalling. Take me.”

“Just being gentle,” Steve objects. “Don’t want to hurt you. Never gonna hurt you,” he murmurs, but he does breach Bucky with one finger, just an inch, testing. Bucky feels soft and warm. Steve pulls out to get more lube, coating his dick with it before touching Bucky again. He pushes his finger in slowly.

“Stop treating me like an invalid. If I wanted to fuck a nurse I would,” Bucky complains.

The effect on Steve is immediate. His spirit flares in jealousy and he rears up. He wants to breach Bucky and pound into him, stake the claim and show Bucky who his Alpha is, but he doesn’t. He stops himself, the rhythm of his finger only hitching briefly.

“No, you won’t,” he growls. “You won’t fuck anyone else ever again, only me. I’m your Alpha. No one fucks you but me. You’re mine.” The uncharacteristic words fall out of him before he can stop them, but they need to be said. If Bucky gives this to anyone else, or anyone thinks they can take it, there will be blood. “No one gets this but me,” he says, adding a second finger to make sure Bucky feels his meaning. Bucky starts breathing heavier.

“Show me, fuck me like an Alpha,” he orders.

Steve frowns, unsure. “You’re not ready,” he says. He wants to be _sure_ he won’t hurt Bucky.

Bucky groans. “It’s enough, stop teasing me. I’ll roll over,” he says, twisting to do just that, but Steve turns him back with a hand on his shoulder. “No. I want to see your face. I want you to see _my_ face.”

Something flickers behind Bucky’s eyes and his face changes. He wraps his legs around Steve’s hips, hooking his ankles together over his ass. “Fine. You can finger-fuck me all night if that’s what you want,” he offers, his voice soft.

Steve crooks his fingers to hit his prostate and make Bucky gasp. “One day I will,” he promises, swirling his fingers and watching as Bucky writhes and moans on the bed. He adds a third finger, watching Bucky’s face for any sign of pain. “But not tonight. Does it hurt?” he asks, moving his fingers slow and deep. Bucky’s ass is wet all the way through.

Bucky shakes his head, too choked for words. Steve pulls his fingers out and wipes them on the blanket, not wanting his grip to slip when he’s holding Bucky’s hips and driving into him. He puts his hands on Bucky’s waist and positions himself, the head of his dick nudging Bucky’s ass. His spirit is burning like a fire in his chest.

“Still wanna do this?” he asks.

“If you don’t enter me right this fucking second, Steve, I’m gonna get my feelings hurt, and I’m gonna leave,” Bucky replies. “You’re supposed to find me irresistible. What kind of Alpha are you?”

Steve leans down and kisses him. “Sorry. Guess I’m still just a shy Omega from Brooklyn on the inside after all,” he says.

“Good thing you got me looking out for you then,” Bucky replies, kissing him back.

“I love you, Bucky, remember that,” Steve tells him. Then he slowly pushes into the tight kiss of Bucky’s body, every muscle turning to steel as he fights to control himself. He feels like his spirit is choking him. He doesn’t know what’s meant to happen, when his claim on Bucky is going to solidify and become permanent, but it feels like his soul is trying to leave his body and he doesn’t know if he’s supposed to let it. He glides into Bucky’s embracing wet heat that twitches around his cock and groans. He can feel the pressure of it through his whole body.

He bottoms out and stops, waiting for the feeling to pass, waiting to get used to it and stop feeling like he’s right on the edge of coming until he faints, but Bucky doesn’t want to wait. Using his remaining hand against the bed for leverage, Bucky tries to move against Steve, tightening around him, teasing at first, enticing, pleading, then clamping so hard Steve wonders if Bucky is trying to hurt him into moving. It won’t work. Steve is an Alpha and can take a lot.

He can feel sweat trickle down his chest and he uses his grip on Bucky’s hips to rock against him, even though he can’t go any deeper than he is now. He realises he has closed his eyes and opens them, looking down to see Bucky, his hair sticking to his face, his dick red and straining.

“Alright,” Steve says to the unspoken command. “Alright.”

He puts one hand above Bucky’s metal shoulder to keep him from being pushed up the bed away from him. The metal will keep Bucky from being hurt at all. The other hand he puts on Bucky’s chest, trailing his fingers over the muscles there before flattening his palm to keep him in place. He resettles his weight on his knees, makes sure he’s got the purchase he needs, then he pulls out of Bucky with a slow drag, then fucks hard back into him. Bucky gives a noise that is a moan and a gasp, as Steve lets the Alpha spirit take over.

He fucks Bucky hard enough to make his whole body move, and in a few thrusts Bucky is moaning in time with Steve’s grunts, his dick slathering pre-come over his stomach. Steve fucks him fast. He needs to get his come in there deep.

He thinks about mating Bucky, about making this Omega his, about making his ass smell like his seed. It is something he feels, a satisfaction that is soul deep. He thinks about still having Bucky there in the morning, and the evening, about making him food and coffee just the way he likes it. He thinks about showering together and how good it’ll feel when the doctors give them good news.

It depends on this moment, and how hard he can fuck this man. He needs to fuck him hard enough to rewire his soul, so that all Steve’s strength becomes his, so that his Alpha red is speared through his aura for all to see, impossible to remove. He needs to get them so close that that grey aura soaks into Steve like permanent dye. He needs to make it so that Bucky is incapable of thinking of anyone else, of looking at anyone else. He wants him to feel Steve fucking him every time Bucky looks at him. He projects everything he is thinking to Bucky through their bond.

He watches pre-come drip from Bucky’s cock and imagines that he is fucking it out of him bit by bit.

He shifts his hold, moving his other hand to the bed above Bucky’s other shoulder, so that his giant frame casts a shadow over the other man. He fucks him with just the power of his hips and watches Bucky’s face. He is biting his lip and almost wincing with the pleasure being pounded into him. He moans and holds onto Steve’s waist.

“I want you to come,” Steve tells him.

Bucky can’t reply, but he pulls a face as if to say “Me too.”

The pressure is building in Steve. He loves this man, and his spirit is going to make it forever. He goes down onto his elbows, licking Bucky’s neck and sucking his earlobe into his mouth before letting it fall from between his lips. Bucky shudders hard, and something changes inside him, it gets harder to pull out and Steve’s rhythm becomes erratic, hard and desperate. “Come on, Bucky. Come for me. Accept me, take me as your Alpha,” he murmurs hot into Bucky’s ear, before catching the delicate shell of it between his canines, tugging with a sharp nip.

He wants Bucky to come just from Steve thrusting inside him, with his dick untouched. It’s a big ask, but Steve thinks what they have between them is enough and he wants it as if he has something to prove, to Bucky and to himself. It seems the feel of Steve’s teeth tips Bucky over the edge, because he comes with a gasp and a groan, his eyes wide and so blue in the dark of the room, his back arching as wetness paints their stomachs.

Steve is not expecting to come at the same time. He wanted to enjoy watching Bucky come first, but his orgasm drags Steve suddenly into his own. So much of his spirit is bonded and blurred with Bucky’s that when the Omega aura releases, ready to be claimed, the Alpha spirit leaps at the opportunity. Steve barely retains enough of his own mind to wonder at it before he is moaning in pleasure, feeling his balls pump into Bucky, his hot come spreading between his dick and Bucky’s walls, seeping down until it is dripping from Steve’s thighs, and Steve is still filling him. With it comes a savagery Steve hadn’t expected, and he grips Bucky tight, trying not to hurt him as his spirit claims him with a determined entitlement, burrowing into the Omega aura and branding him his.

Steve comes a lot and for a long time. Somewhere in the middle Bucky comes again, satisfied by the visceral physical claiming of Steve’s come filling him until he is overflowing, and the dominating possession of his spirit. After a minute or two, it slows down to twitchy spurts, and even when it stops entirely Steve is still mostly hard inside Bucky.

He groans, forcing himself up enough to look at Bucky’s face. Steve feels wrung out, he feels like his spirit is missing, so much of it has gone into Bucky, who he can now feel like a heart beating next to his own. Bucky looks to be in a similar state, breathing hard. Steve is at a loss for words, and he is too comfortable where he is to pull out of Bucky, and he wants to keep his come plugged inside him for as long as possible. He knows he should maybe kiss him, tell him he loves him, ask him if he’s okay, say something about their newly formed bond, but words fail him.

Bucky seems to recover first, as he should since he’s the one who’s just got an infusion of Alpha energy. He makes a face as if he’s just noticed something. “Are you still hard?” he asks, clenching his ass around Steve’s cock as if to test it, making the flood of Steve’s come all the more noticeable in the slickness of it.

Steve can’t tell if Bucky’s impressed or afraid. “Still want you,” he murmurs back, and it’s true. Steve means it in the long-term, but the thought of another round has him rallying, energy coming back to him and his dick hardening the rest of the way.

Bucky looks at him and Steve feels a tentative tug at the second heartbeat that now lives in him. Bucky is testing the bond, so Steve tugs back, letting him know that he felt it. The reminder that they are now mates makes Steve kiss Bucky after all, gently and slowly. He starts to get heated up again but Bucky turns away, breaking the kiss.

“The docs said I shouldn’t stay the night,” he mumbles. “Just in case. They want me back in Medical. If we go again, I won’t want to leave.”

Steve takes a moment to understand what is being said to him. Bucky can’t sleep next to him in his bed. Steve is surprisingly crushed by this news, and he feels that old Alpha stubbornness coming back to him. “What do you want to do?” he asks, hoping Bucky will say he wants to stay. Steve doesn’t mind if he has to fight off a few doctors. They’d be fools to come here and try to take Bucky away from him.

“I want to do what the docs say,” he says, sounding surprised with himself. “It’s worked so far. And if I don’t remember again-”

“You’ll remember,” Steve insists. Bucky forgetting this is not an option, Steve won’t allow it. He can forget everything else, but not this. “I’ll remind you. Your spirit will know.”

Bucky gives a weak smile. “I don’t want you to see that. I might try and hurt you, or someone else. You might have to restrain me. It’s better I go back.”

“Bucky, I’m going to see it. Eventually, I’m going to see it. And I don’t care. I’m not trying to talk you out of it though, if it’s what you want to do. I hope you’ll let me go back with you though. I don’t want to let you go. That feels like a bad idea right now.” Steve told him.

“Can we not have this conversation with you inside me?” Bucky asks.

“Oh. Sorry.” Steve pulls out of him, even though he is fully hard now. He can’t see it, but he knows his come must be following him out.

Bucky pulls a face. “Christ, that’s a lot,” he says, half sitting up as Steve clambers out from between his legs.

“Sorry. It’s never been like that before,” Steve tells him. “Maybe it’s a, a mates thing,” he suggests a little nervously. “A claiming thing.”

“Maybe,” Bucky agrees. “Guess we’ll just have to see if it happens again. And you’re still hard,” he says, eyeing Steve’s dick coated with come as he lies on his side.

Steve shrugs. “I’m alright,” he says. He doesn’t want Bucky to feel pressured to do anything.

Bucky scoots to the edge of the bed. “Can I use your shower?” he says.

“Please do,” Steve replies, a little too enthusiastically. “I put out a towel.”

“Thanks,” Bucky says, standing and walking to the bathroom with uneven steps.

“So you’re going then?” Steve asks, sitting up as well, his erection starting to flag at the thought.

“Trust me, it’s for the best,” Bucky calls back as he gets the water running.

Steve stands up and follows him. “Am I coming?”

Bucky looks back at him. Steve is afraid he’s going to tell him no, but he says “Sure.”

“Buck?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you happy?”

Bucky meets his eyes and pauses before saying “I’m happier than I ever thought I could be.” He steps back into the shower and gestures to Steve. “Now come on, you can help me wash the come out of my ass.”

Steve gratefully follows him into the tiny cubicle. “But I just got it in there,” he teases with a pretend pout.

The next morning the doctors find them in Bucky’s room, wrapped around each other in a bed that’s much too small. And though it takes a moment, Bucky does remember Steve, and their claiming, and gives him a smile and a kiss to prove it.

 

 

 


End file.
